PetroChina's Changqing Field Oil Output Rises 15%

PetroChina Co., the largest oil producer in the country, increased crude output at its Changqing field by 15 percent in the first half of the year as the company steps up exploration to make the field the nation's largest.

Production at the field in northwestern China rose to 6.88 million metric tons during the period, or half of the full-year target of 13.75 million tons, compared with a year earlier, China National Petroleum Corp. said in its newsletter today. It didn't give gas output.

PetroChina's Changqing field will overtake Daqing as the nation's largest oil field in 2015, Wang Daofu, president of the field, said in March. Output will reach 50 million tons of equivalent by then, according to Wang.

Output at Changqing, currently the third largest, will reach the equivalent of 25 million tons of oil this year and 34 million tons in 2010, Wang said March 7.

PetroChina Daqing field, discovered almost half a century ago in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, has fallen from a peak of 56 million tons in 1997.