This Day, That Year

Item from June 29, 1991, in China Daily: An agreement between the Bank of China and the China National Petroleum and Natural Gas Corp to offer loans for the exploration of the new gas field found in the Tarim Basin was signed yesterday at a ceremony held in Beijing's Zhongnanhai, headquarters of the central government....

Oil experts say that the Tarim Basin is likely to become the country's next major oil hub to succeed the older oilfields in east and northeast China, which will account for more than 80 percent of the country's oil output in the next 10 years.

The Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is China's fourth-largest oilfield with the oil and gas output reaching 25 million metric tons of oil equivalent last year, according to the PetroChina Tarim Oilfield Co, a subsidiary of China's largest oil and gas producer PetroChina.