China will open its arms for foreign oil and gas companies, and for local private E&Ps, the country’s Ministry for Natural Resources told media as quoted by the China Global Television Network. The move will “stimulate market vitality” the media quoted the official as saying. Reuters added that there will be certain limits on who will gain access to China’s oil and gas deposits. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, these will be companies with net assets worth no less than $43 million. China has been actively looking for ways to boost domestic oil and natural gas production to alleviate its dependence on imports. However, this has proved difficult to do relying only on the state-owned energy giants. The change, effective May 1 this year, has been eagerly awaited by the industry because although China is home to some 25.7 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, a lot […]