STRATEGIC BREAKTHROUGH OF SINOPEC

Southwest China, which includes Sichuan, and the Upper Yangtze River area account for 40 percent of the country’s estimated 25.08 trillion cubic meters of shale gas reserves, the world’s largest, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources. China aims to produce 6.5 billion cubic meters of shale gas by 2015 and as much as 100 billion cubic meters by 2020, from almost zero commercial output in 2013.

Crude oil production rose 1.4 percent and natural gas output increased 10 percent in 2013, China Petrochemical said on its microblog, without providing comparable or absolute numbers for oil and gas production. Oil processing increased 4.8 percent from a year earlier.

Overseas oil and gas production in 2013 increased 33 percent from the year before and the refining business returned to profit, General Manager Wang Tianpu said in the post, published on Jan. 21 and confirmed by a spokeswoman today.

Sinopec is expected to release annual production numbers in March. It produced 428 million barrels of oil equivalent, or 60.2 million tons, in 2012.

Cnooc, China’s biggest offshore oil and gas producer, plans to produce 422 million to 435 million barrels of oil equivalent, a 5.6 percent increase from a year earlier, in 2014, it said on Jan. 20. The company produced 412 million barrels of oil equivalent last year, including 61 million barrels from unit Nexen Inc. in Canada.

More information here.