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China finds new oil reserves

BEIJING, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- China says its Bohai Bay Basin in the north may contain 20.5 billion tons of offshore oil reserves.

The official China Daily newspaper said Thursday some 9 billion tons of oil have already been confirmed in the basin. The remaining 11.5 billion tons need to be further explored to be confirmed, it said.

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The find indicates that total oil resources in place in the basin -- one of China's major oil-producing centers -- could potentially sustain the country's energy needs for a long time, Jin Zhijun with the China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., told China Daily.

Jin said that for a long time to come, China could mainly rely on its domestically produced oil and natural gas to sustain its development. The East China Sea, South China Sea and Yellow Sea may all have rich oil resources and China's western land areas also had large potential for untapped oil resources, he said.

The Tarim Basin of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, for example, may contain over 20 billion tons of oil resources, Jin said.

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