According to the Ministry of Land and Resources, China had nearly 94 billion tons of provable oil reserves as of the end of 2011, an increase of 23 percent over 2007. The provable natural gas reserves reached about 55 trillion cubic meters, about 56 percent more than in 2007.
Peng Qiming, director of the ministry's geological exploration department, attributed the improvements to two factors.
"The dramatic growth of the oil and gas reserves across the country is mainly due to technological development and innovation in exploration and drilling. We drilled 600 new oil shale wells in the northeast over the past five years, which helped us to improve the exploitation scale."
China, one of the world's largest energy users, added more than 11 billion tonnes of oil reserves and 5.8 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves during the past decade.
The country's annual oil output stands at over 200 million tonnes in 2011, and its gas output has topped 101 billion cubic meters, ranking fourth and sixth in the world respectively.
At the same time, the country has also seen its oil consumption surging.
Statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show China's dependence on imported oil rose to over 56 percent in 2011.
Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, said the substantial increases in geological resources will no doubt alleviate the threat on China's energy security, but there are still some problems.
"It will depend on the quantity of how much there is and the economics. For example, if the reserve has large quantity, it will certainly help a lot. But if it is small, it will not be that significant. Second, if the cost of utilizing those reserves is high, it will also be a problem."
The Ministry of Land and Resources predicts China's annual output of oil may exceed 250 million tons by 2030, and the annual output of natural gas is expected to reach 450 billion cubic meters.
For CRI, I'm Zhang Shuangfeng.
