The chairman of the Chinese National Committee for the World Petroleum Council, Wang Tao, said on September 22 that according to a new evaluation of resources, China owns an estimated amount of more than 65 billion tons of oil, 39 percent of which has been verified. The estimate for natural gas reserves is 25 trillion cubic meters, 24.6 percent of which is confirmed.

Wang Tao said at the 2007 China Petroleum Symposium on the New Domain and New Technologies of Oil and Gas Exploration held in Beijing that the country has rich oil and gas resources but the exploration level remains relatively low. Therefore, there is high potential for further resource development. Oil and gas exploration should be focused in the carbonate rock areas of the sea and western and northern China in the next period. 
 
Wang Tao stated that exploring for oil and gas so as to obtain new resources is the prerequisite for the development of the oil industry. Developing new domains and new technologies of oil and gas exploration is one of the most targeted objectives in the energy field during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), and also the focus of today's oil industry. In recent years, China has made marked achievements in oil and gas exploration and significant progress in geological theoretical innovation and exploration technology for oil and gas.

It is said that so far the world has extracted more than 160 billion tons of crude oil, more than 170 billion tons is set to be extracted, and more than 1,000 tons to be discovered.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Ming'ai, September 24, 2007)