PetroChina Co said gas and oil output from Tarim Basin fields in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region may jump 50 percent this year as the nation's largest oil company intensifies its search for new supplies.

 

PetroChina Tarim Oilfield Co expects to produce the equivalent of 15 million metric tons of oil this year, up from 10 million in 2005, Sun Longde, president of the PetroChina unit, said in the Xinjiang city of Kolar. That's about 10 percent of PetroChina's projected 2006 output.

 

China is relying more on areas like Tarim, opened 16 years ago, as output stagnates from older fields such as Daqing, the nation's largest. PetroChina plans 2006 capital spending of more than US$20 billion, including drilling wells deeper than 5,000 meters at Tarim, to supply the world's fastest-growing major economy.

 

PetroChina's parent, China National Petroleum Corp, has invited tenders for 12 exploration areas in Tarim, with Total SA and Chevron Corp among foreign companies that have requested details of the sites ahead of possible bids, Sun Tairong, a director at Tarim Oilfield, told reporters in Kolar.

 

"We have officially started the bidding process," he said, adding that formal tenders may be received at the end of the year.

 

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company by market value, is considering bidding for the Xinjiang oil and gas fields, Lim Haw Kuang, executive chairman of the company's China operations, said on September 22.

 

Inviting foreign partners "has been an ongoing part of their thinking because it is a fairly undeveloped area and they would like to have other people come in and participate if they can reach agreements with other companies," Macquarie's Weaver said.

 

Output from Tarim may reach 6.05 million tons of crude (44 million barrels) and 11.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year, Sun Longde said. That may more than double to in excess of 25 million tons in the five years ending 2010, including 8 million tons of crude and 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas, he said.

 

By then, output from Daqing, which has been pumping oil since 1959 and accounts for a quarter of the nation's production, may drop to 40 million tons from 56 million tons in 1997.

 

(China Daily October 13, 2006)