OREANDA-NEWS. PetroChina's hydrocarbon reserves increased by 1.84 billion tons of oil equivalent in 2019. According to Xinhua news agency on Monday, this year’s growth was a record for the company.

"This year, a large oil field with reserves of 1 billion tons was discovered in the Ordos basin in Qincheng county (central part of China), in the south of Sichuan province (western part of China), geological exploration confirmed the presence of 1 trillion cubic meters of shale gas, in the Tarim basin in the Bozi Dabei region (northwestern part of China) - also 1 trillion cubic meters", the agency quotes the words of the president of the board of directors of PetroChina, Wang Ilin.

According to him, this year the company also made a major breakthrough in geological exploration in the Dzungarian oil and gas basin in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.

According to PetroChina, in 2018, the growth of newly explored geological oil reserves in China amounted to 633.16 million tons, natural gas - 584.6 billion cubic meters. Its net profit last year increased by 130.7%, to 52.59 billion yuan ($ 7.85 billion). PetroChina was founded in 1999. The company is part of the Chinese state oil and gas corporation CNPC. A ton of oil equivalent is a unit of energy produced by burning one ton of oil.