A Chinese state-owned oil company’s $1.5-million donation to the Calgary Public Library is its foundation’s largest ever, and marks the start of the library’s major fundraising drive that will offer corporate branding on sections within branches, but not the buildings themselves.

Friday’s announcement also marks the biggest public gesture yet to the city from Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) since the Canadian government allowed the firm to acquire Calgary-based Nexen Inc.

CNOOC will become the title sponsor for a high-tech “learning commons” area in the new central library when it opens in 2018 in East Village. It’s also funding a new automated materials sorting facility in the current main branch, replacing what the flood destroyed in the library’s basement.

“We have to be part of the social and economic development, part of the community. This is our policy,” CNOOC chief executive Li Fanrong told reporters after the announcement.

Asked if the donation was designed to soothe concerns about foreign governments’ investments in Alberta’s oilsands, Li said his company is internationally and locally focused.

“All we did is not to try to mitigate the perceptions which people are (having),” he said. “We think we have to do what we needed to (do) for the local communities.”

At a press handler’s urging, Li declined to answer any questions at the event about CNOOC’s energy business.

The Calgary library’s $225-million main branch will be built primarily with city grants. Starting Friday, the library foundation has launched what it calls the largest fundraising campaign ever for a Canadian library for upgrades across the 18-branch network, although its president didn’t name a target dollar amount.

Paul McIntyre Royston said the central branch and other libraries may get new names, but he said corporate titles like the Captain Highliner Fish Creek Library wouldn’t be “friendly and opening” to patrons.

“For namings like that we’ll likely look at individuals in the community, and our corporate partners and friends helping to name those feature areas within the space.”

McIntyre Royston said the library system will set clear rules for donors and sponsorships. Although CNOOC is owned by a government with tight information restriction policies, the library foundation head said there will be “no censorship whatsoever” in the new sponsored spaces.