PetroChina—the country’s largest oil and gas producer—is betting big on boosting natural gas production in line with the Chinese policy to increase its gas production and industrial and residential gas use. Yet, planned production increases at the biggest upstream company will not even come close to reducing China’s dependence on oil and natural gas imports—they are set to further rise as the country’s energy demand grows, while domestic oil and gas production capacities struggle in vain to keep up with growth. PetroChina will also look to raise its crude oil production as the world’s largest oil importing country tries to reverse a decline in its domestic crude oil production while its oil demand continues to grow. To this end, PetroChina is planning to raise natural gas production at a faster rate than oil production. “Domestic oil and gas resources are not good enough for significant production increases,” PetroChina’s vice […]