Shanghai Daily: Business - shanghaidaily.com
CHINA National Petroleum Corp and Chevron Corp have agreed on terms of a 30-year production-sharing contract to develop a gas block in southwestern Sichuan Province, the US oil major announced yesterday. The Chuandongbei gas development area, covering nearly 2,000 square kilometers, has an estimated resource base of five trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Designed capacity at the proposed gas plants is expected to be 740 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, Chevron said in a statement, without giving an investment figure. CNPC will own a 51 percent in the project and Chevron will be the operator holding the balance. The Chuandongbei area includes the Tieshanpo, Dukouhe-Qilibei and Luojiazhai gas fields, containing high-sulfur gas. An accident has been reported in Luojiazhai in December 2003 when a toxic gas blow-out killed hundreds, and in March last year, thousands were evacuated after a leak there. CNPC has been looking for foreign expertise to extract such