SINGAPORE, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Private Chinese oil refiner and petrochemical manufacturers Hengli Petrochemical Corp and Rongsheng Petrochemical Corp have each hired a new executive for its Singapore trading desk, company officials said on Wednesday.

Hengli Petrochemical International Pte Ltd, the trading unit for Hengli Petrochemical Co. Ltd, hired James Zhang, formerly Head of Energy, Asia, at ICBC Standard Bank, as its deputy president to drive the company's strategy and its day-to-day operations, a company spokesman said.

Zhang started early this month, the spokesman said.

Separately, Zhu Yanyu, previously a veteran oil products trading manager at state-owned oil and gas company PetroChina , started in June at Rongsheng Petrochemical (Singapore) Pte Ltd as a deputy general manager in charge of refined products trading, said two company officials.

The Singapore operation is the international trading unit for Rongsheng Petrochemical Corp, which is a key stakeholder in Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp (ZPC), one of China's largest private refiners which operates a 400,000 barrels per day refinery in east China's Zhoushan.

ZPC became the first private Chinese refiner to win Chinese government quotas to export low-sulphur marine fuel in April, and in July the firm was granted a license to export other refined products. (Reporting by Chen Aizhu and Shu Zhang; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)