PetroChina Parent to Develop an Uzbekistan Field

By Winnie Zhu

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- China National Petroleum Corp., the nation's largest oil producer, signed an accord with Uzbekistan's state oil company to jointly develop an oilfield in the central Asian country.

The field has ``explorable reserves'' exceeding 30 million metric tons and is expected to have an annual output capacity of 2 million tons, or 40,000 barrels a day, the Beijing-based company said in a statement on its Web site today.

Chinese oil companies are acquiring oil and gas fields abroad to meet rising domestic demand. In February, China National started building the world's largest gas pipeline to ship the fuel from fields in Turkmenistan via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

``The cooperation project will accelerate the development of China's gas exploration projects and the China-Central Asia pipeline,'' China National said in the statement.

Liu Weijiang, the Beijing-based spokesman of China National, declined to comment. China National is the parent of overseas-listed PetroChina Co.


China National increased overseas crude output by 12 percent to a record of 60.23 million tons last year, about a third of the nation's domestic production, the company said in January. Overseas fields accounted for 54 percent of the annual target in natural gas production in the first six months, it said in July.

To contact the reporter on this story: Winnie Zhu in Shanghai at Wzhu4@bloomberg.net.