A Chinese oil company and a state-run Myanmar oil company reached a production-sharing contract Friday on cooperation in petroleum exploration.

Under the contract, signed between the Dian-Qian-Gui Petroleum Exploration Bureau of SINOPEC of China and the Myanmar Oil and GasEnterprise, petroleum exploration will be carried out at Block D, an onshore block in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

The onshore block covers about 12,000 square-kilometers.

With 19 onshore and three main large offshore oil and gas fields, Myanmar possesses 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve in the offshore and onshore areas, according to official statistics.

The statistics also show that Myanmar produced 7.2 million barrels of crude oil in 2003. Gas export during the year earned 655 million dollars, while crude oil import worth 27.85 million dollars the same year.

Since Myanmar opened to foreign investment in late 1988, such investment in the sector had reached 2.5 billion dollars as of the end of 2003, the figures also reveal. Foreign oil companies engaged in the oil and gas sector also mainly include those from Britain, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia and Canada.

(Xinhua News Agency September 4, 2004)