Under the present rising demand for oil d gas and continuous hiking of fuel prices, China's geological prospecting has shifted its focus to oil and gas resources.

      In 2007, China injected a total of 66.0 billion yuan in geological prospecting, of which 50 billion yuan were put into prospecting of oil and gas resources, accounting for three fourths of the total.

      Currently, China has basically established a market-oriented prospecting mechanism, stimulating various oil giants to increase commercial investment in the work. PetroChina's investment in geological prospecting exceeded 300 million yuan in 2007, three times of that in 2000. It discovered more than 500 million tons of geological reserves of oil in the 2004-2007 period, which is estimated at 700 million tons in 2008.

      Sinopec found new geological oil reserves amounting to 2.35 billion tons in 1998-2007, and new natural gas reserve of 1.07 trillion cubic meters.

      The rising demand of oil has made China's dependence on imported oil reach 49 percent.

      Although the newly discovered oil and gas reserves have increased a lot, they are of low grade, with low tenor reserves amounting to 65 percent of the total, which will bring about more difficulties to the country in oil and gas exploration and production.