Oil discovery to help reduce reliance on imports

A big addition of 1 billion metric tons of oil to the geological reserves of the Qingcheng oilfield, Gansu province, will help wean China off its reliance on oil imports and safeguard the country's energy security, industry experts said.

PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Company, a regional branch of China's top oil and gas producer Petro-China, announced earlier that it had discovered new geological reserves of 1 billion tons of shale oil at its Qingcheng oilfield in the Ordos Basin, among which 358 million tons had been proved.

That amount is equal to almost three times the refined oil China consumed last year, which was about 325 million tons, according to data from the National Development and Reform Commission.