PETROCHINA Co. and three partners will invest more than US$4 billion to drill for gas in the nation’s most productive shale fields.

    China’s biggest energy producer has joined Sinochem Group and two local State enterprises to form the venture in the southwestern city of Chongqing, according to a statement posted to the municipality’s website yesterday. The project will start operations by the end of the year and begin commercial production in 2017.

    Chongqing holds more than 2 trillion cubic meters of exploitable shale gas, according to the municipal government. So far, most of its development has been centered on the Fuling site run by China’s No. 2 oil company, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. China’s land and resources ministry estimates the nation’s reserves at about 25 trillion cubic meters, the world’s largest.

    The venture should “substantially increase shale gas exploration in Chongqing” to the benefit of all partners and the local economy, said Sun Zhengcai, Chongqing’s top official, according to Chongqing Daily, which covered the project’s launch ceremony Tuesday.

    China should surpass its 2015 shale gas output target of 6.5 billion cubic meters, Yue Laiqun, a ministry researcher, said in Beijing yesterday. Still, that’s only a small proportion of the 30-billion-cubic-meter goal set for 2020 and a sliver of the 266 billion cubic meters produced by the United States in 2012. (SD-Agencies)