OREANDA-NEWS. December 11, 2014. The General Office of the State Council of China has announced plans to develop nine large oilfields in the Bohai Sea and the South China Sea to secure its energy sources, reports our Chinese-language sister newspaper Want Daily.

It is the first time that Chinese government has proposed to develop large oilfields in the South China Sea. The oilfields will be able to produce over 10 thousand tons per year, according to estimates in the plan set for 2014-2020.

Guidelines target offshore oilfields and pledge to maintain existing oilfields and develop new ones on land, according to the Hong Kong Commercial Daily. China has rich oil and natural gas resources along its coasts that span across more than one million square kilometers.

Oilfield development will inevitably lead the country into conflict with neighboring countries again. China has previously clashed with Japan over territorial disputes in the East China Sea as well as with Vietnam over an oil rig in the South China Sea.

The push for offshore oil development is spurred by recent technological breakthroughs in offshore drilling and growing domestic demand for energy. The East China Sea reportedly contains one of the world's largest oil deposits, holding anywhere from three to seven billion tons, according to a survey conducted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East in 1966.

China has explored around 160,000 square kilometers of the South China Sea, so far estimating a staggering 5.22 billion tonnes of oil and over two billion yuan (US\\$325 million) in natural gas deposits. The resources could push up China's GDP growth by 1% to 2% even if only a third of them were developed over the next two decades.