Annual crude oil output at west China's Karamay field topped
11.97 million tonnes as of Monday, about 50,000 tonnes more than
the total amount of last year, said a spokesman of the Xinjiang
Oilfield Company.
China began exploiting oil resources in the Junggar Basin, in
the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in 1955 and
drilled an oil well at Karamay the same year. The output at the
Karamay field has been increasing steadily for 27 straight years
since 1981.
Karamay is China's fourth largest onshore oil field and an
important petrochemical industrial base for the western
regions.
Last year, the field produced almost 11.92 million tonnes of
crude oil and almost 2.88 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Xinjiang is the third region in China to have a daily oil output
that exceeds 70,000 tonnes after northeast Heilongjiang and east
Shandong Provinces.
When the region's petroleum industry started in 1953, the annual
oil output was only 70.200 tonnes, about what it now produces per
day.
(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2007)
