A new oil deposit holding more than a billion tons of crude has been found in China, reports the official Xinhua News agency. The discovery was made by the Chinese National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) in the Juggar Basin in the Xinjiang region.

#China to become largest natural gas consumer in the world by 2040-2050 https://t.co/C3O7ukbRjG — RT (@RT_com) October 24, 2017

“Nearly 1.24 billion tons of crude have been found so far with about 520 million tons of proven reserves,” officials at the state’s company subsidiary PetroChina told the media.

The company stressed the discovery came after ten years of geological exploration in the area.

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Chinese oil majors such as PetroChina and China National Offshore Oil Corporation have been ramping up exploration efforts as domestic output from fading oil wells keeps falling, according to Reuters. PetroChina officials said the company has increased production capacity at its Xinjiang oilfield by 1.38 million tons this year or about 27,000 barrels per day.

Currently, China has the thirteenth largest volume of proven oil reserves with 25,620 million barrels of commercially recoverable crude.

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China’s largest oil field Daqing reportedly holds 5.7 billion tons of crude and a trillion cubic meters of natural gas. At the same time, China is the second-largest holder of emergency crude stockpiles. At the moment it is taking advantage of low oil prices to replenish storage.