China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the nation's biggest oil and gas producer, discovered oil reserves of 300 million tons, or 2.19 billion barrels, in the first half of this year, a senior company official who did not want to be identified said yesterday.

Gas reserves also increased by at least 150 billion cubic meters from January to June as new discoveries were made in the oil giant's major fields across the country, the source told China Daily.

CNPC plans to invest some 153.5 billion yuan (US$18.9 billion) this year in domestic oil and gas exploitation, according to the official. The group made a profit of 128.85 billion yuan (US$15.9 billion) last year.

In the Jidong field of Bohai Bay Basin, oil reserves of as much as 200 million tons have been "preliminarily identified", the official revealed.

The parent company of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina also expects oil reserves in Zhoufeng area of the Ordos Basin in northwestern China to jump by some 100 million tons by the end of this year, as exploration work is still being done in the resource-abundant region.

On the gas front, the oil giant has found some 100 million cubic metres of natural gas in the Songliao Basin of Northeast China, and a similar discovery was made in southwestern China's Sichuan Province.

The group has also maintained robust momentum overseas, the highlight of which was Monday's agreed takeover of Canadian-registered PetroKazakhstan for US$4.18 billion.

The group has set a target of producing 35 million tons of crude oil and 3.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year from its cross-border projects in more than 10 countries.

From January to June, oil and gas output from CNPC's overseas fields reached 15.63 million tons and 1.9 billion cubic meters respectively, up 9.6 percent and 8.1 percent from last year.

The Beijing-based company discovered proven oil reserves of at least 90 million tons in overseas fields during the six-month period, of which 24 million tons is exploitable.

It made a net profit of US$220 million from its overseas projects for the same period, selling US$1.47 billion worth of oil and gas products.

Skyrocketing crude prices on the world market have driven state-owned CNPC's half-year profit up 37 percent between January and June, or an increase of 19.2 billion yuan (US$2.3 billion) year-on-year.

China, the world's second-largest energy consumer after the United States, last year produced 174 million tons of crude oil and imported 122 million tons.

(China Daily August 24, 2005)