China National Petroleum Corp, the country's largest oil company, will boost 2008 crude oil output by one percent and natural gas output by 18 percent to meet the nation's rising energy demand.

China National plans to increase oil output by one million tonnes, about 20,000 barrels a day, and natural gas production by 10 billion cubic meters this year, Vice President Zhou Jiping said in a statement on the company's website yesterday.

Energy consumption in China could jump 5.1 percent a year in the decade to 2015 and more than double to the equivalent of 16.5 million barrels of oil a day by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

China's economy grew 11.5 percent in the third quarter of last year.

China National increased oil output by one million tonnes in 2007, the company said on January 1. It produced 106 million tonnes of oil in 2006, Vice President Duan Wende said a year earlier.

Natural gas production rose 10 billion cubic meters last year, the company said. That's an increase of 22 percent from 44.5 billion cubic meters in 2006, Bloomberg News said.

The company's refineries operated at 98 percent of capacity last year as fuel consumption increased in China, China National said in yesterday's statement. Oil-product output rose 10.1 percent to 82.8 million tonnes last year, it said.

China National, parent of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina Co, aims to have sales of two trillion yuan (US$276 billion) in 2015, company President Jiang Jiemin said in yesterday's statement.

PetroChina Co's Tarim Oilfield Co plans to produce 6.45 million tonnes of crude oil and 18.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year.

(Shanghai Daily January 18, 2008)