French energy giant Engie announced Monday the creation of a joint business with Chinese partner Shaanxi Houde Tonxing to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the Asian giant's northwest.

Engie will hold 35 percent of the joint venture to build the plant in an industrial park in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, in return for investment worth around 200 million euros ($215 million), it said in a statement.

The first stage of the project, with a capacity of 250,000 tonnes of LNG a year, is due to come into operation in July 2017 and the second, of up to 500,000 tonnes a year, in February 2018.

Work is to begin in early 2016 with a study to assess a proposed storage site, the statement said.

Engie, known as GDF-Suez until earlier this year, opened its first office in China in 2008 and now runs several energy projects there.

Earlier this month it said it had signed two major deals with the China Huaneng and Beijing Enterprise groups, without giving details.

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