American enterprises have already invested US$5 billion in China's ongoing oil and gas exploration projects, a senior Chinese official said yesterday.   

 

Deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Zhang Guobao, told the 7th Sino-US Oil and Gas Industry Forum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province that there were currently 20 Sino-US joint oil and gas exploration projects in the country.  

 

"China has a positive and open attitude toward US enterprises involved in oil and gas exploration," said Zhang. "This means a win-win situation for Chinese and US companies who cooperate on such projects based on the principle of mutual benefit," he said.

 

The NDRC data shows that crude oil retrieved from China's offshore oil projects, in which US oil companies have a stake, reached 15.53 million tons in 2005, accounting for 56 percent of the China National Offshore Oil Company's total output.

 

Jeffery Jarrett, US assistant secretary for fossil energy, urged Chinese and US oil companies to seek more avenues for cooperation to better cope with the challenges generated by global energy shortages, adding that international cooperation provides the best solution to the problem.  

 

Zhang said China would strengthen cooperation with multinationals in global oil and gas exploration, based on mutually beneficial principles and international conventions. He said China was striving to diversify its oil supply sources and to implement a strategic oil reserve plan to better ensure its supply's security.  

 

The official did not elaborate on the subject saying only that China consumed 317 million tons of oil in 2005. The country's net oil imports stood at 136 million tons in 2005, down 5.3 percent from 2004.

 

Zhang predicted that China's oil imports would increase due to the rapid growth of the economy that reached 11.3 percent in the second quarter of this year.

 

China was "actively" attempting to develop new and renewable energy sources and to optimize the energy production and consumption structure, Zhang said. This would help reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil, he added, which last year accounted for 42.9 percent of national consumption.   

 

The two-day forum, which opened yesterday, is a public partnership that brings together governments and industry representatives from the US and China.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2006)