ConocoPhillips agreed to sell its stake in a Canadian oil-sands project to China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. for $4.65 billion, in a major North American expansion by a Chinese oil company.

The deal demonstrates China's increasingly assertive strategy to secure energy resources around the world. The country's rapid growth and emerging middle class enabled it to surpass the U.S. as the world's top automobile market last year, and its state-backed oil companies have been acquiring oil and gas reserves and storage globally.

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