OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2011. PetroChina (NYSE: PTR), China's largest oil company, is looking to produce 1 billion cubic meters of shale gas in China's Sichuan province by 2015, a lofty goal considering the company currently produces no shale gas.

China has only just begun to tap what are believed to be vast shale gas reserves and has no commercial production as of yet. PetroChina said in August that the firm aimed for a total output of 1.5 billion cubic meters of shale gas by 2015, Reuters reported.

China, the world's top energy consumer, is also the world's largest polluter and has been looking to boost its consumption of cleaner-burning fuels to reduce that pollution footprint. The country consumed about 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas last year, but that figure is expected to triple by the end of this decade, according to Reuters.

Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) and BP (NYSE: BP [FREE Stock Trend Analysis]), Europe's two largest oil companies, are among the firms helping Chinese energy giants tap into shale gas reserves there.

PetroChina rival Sinopec (NYSE: SNP), China's second-largest oil company, has yet to announce an official shale gas production forecast.