China is set to invest CNY80 billion or GBP 8.23 billion in oil and gas exploration projects for 2013. This was confirmed on Sunday by China's state media outlets. The goal is to boost energy internal energy supplies to reduce its continued dependence on energy imports.
China's oil and gas investments have increased from CNY19 billion in 2002 to CNY67.3 billion in 2011. This was confirmed by Xinhua news agency, citing figures from China's Ministry of Land and Resources. The news agency further said that about 5 billion tonnes of petroleum reserves as well as 2.6 trillion cubic meters of natural gas had been discovered from 2008 to 2011.
China is the biggest energy consumer in the world and it had promised to cut its dependence on overseas supplies of oil and gas. Many analysts though predict that China would overtake the United States as the world's largest importer of crude oil as early as 2017. The supply of oil and gas would come from the Middle East and Africa through highly vulnerable sea lanes.
These imports are important as the domestic production is insufficient to meet the increasing demand. Much of the imported gas is delivered through a network of pipelines from Central Asia or ship from Australia, Indonesia and Qatar.
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