Chinese leaders said Monday that oil, natural gas prospecting should be prioritized in geological survey as the fast-growing country tries to cope with its rising energy demands.

In a written instruction to a national meeting on geological work, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao listed exploring mineral resources, raising energy efficiency, improving ecological environment and preventing and controlling geological disasters as four major tasks of geological work.

"Facilitating geological work is an important way to ease resource bottlenecks and enhance domestic resource supply capacity," said Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan, who attended the meeting.

For now and a period of time in the future, exploration of major energy resources such as petroleum and natural gas should be paced up to achieve breakthroughs in creating a batch of resource bases.

The two leaders also stressed technological innovation in improving geological survey.

(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2006)