CNPC hastens new energy development

China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the country’s largest oil and gas producer, will speed up development of new energies including coal bed methane, fuel ethanol and oil sands, aiming to set its annual oil-equivalent production capacity at 1.25 million tons this year. The company will further increase capacity to 6 million tons of oil equivalent in 2015, said an official with the company. The company has just formulated its development plan for new energy this year, under which it will develop fuel ethanol capacity of 500,000 tons per year and coal bed methane capacity of 600 million cubic meters per year, said the report, citing Zhou Mingchun, chief financial officer of PetroChina Co., the
listed arm of CNPC. After increasing the capacity to 6 million tons, CNPC will have 4 billion cubic meters per year of coalbed methane capacity, 1 billion cubic meters per year of shale gas, 2 million tons per year of fuel ethanol and 60,000 tons per year of biodiesel, said Zhou. (April 1, 2010)