THE country’s top energy producers will grow their natural gas output this year by twice as much as in the previous oil rout even as they slash spending due to collapsing oil prices, company officials and analysts said.

The world’s top energy consumer is forecast to expand its natural gas production by 5 percent or more in 2020 despite plans for deep spending cuts which will likely curb local oil production, they said.

That would be half the growth in 2019 but double the 2.2 percent growth seen in 2016 following a lengthy oil slump.

“Under the capital expenditure cuts, companies are revising their gas strategy from an earlier aggressive push to a more practical approach, as gas production remains profitable,” said Zhu Kunfeng, Beijing-based associate director at IHS Markit.

PetroChina, Sinopec Corp. and CNOOC Ltd. said in April they would reduce spending by roughly 20 percent to 30 percent, similar to the cuts they made in the last oil rout in 2015/2016.

PetroChina and Sinopec, which together pump more than 90 percent of domestic gas, are set to accelerate drilling at top basins including Ordos in North China, Tarim basin in the northwest and Sichuan in the southwest.(SD-Agencies)