Bloomberg: PetroChina Leads $4 Billion Shale Expansion in China’s Southwest

PetroChina Co. and three partners will invest over $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 today. The project will start operations by the end of the year and begin commercial production in 2017.

Chongqing holds over 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. MORE