VP Of China University Of Petroleum Calls PRC Peak At 2015 - Interfax

Beijing. October 29. INTERFAX-CHINA - China will see domestic oil production peak as early as 2015 with an annual output of 190 million tons, while gas production is expected to peak sometime around 2035 with an annual output of 120 billion cubic meters, a leading energy scholar said at an industry forum held in Beijing over the weekend.

Such a prediction is accepted by most domestic scholars working with peak theory, Pang Xiongqi, the vice president of the China University of Petroleum, said at the 2nd International Forum on China's Energy Security. Peak theory maintains that globally, as well as on a country-by-country basis, there is a peak production rate for exhaustible resources such as oil and gas, and that after this peak has been reached output will start to decline and gradually near depletion.

According to Pang, Chinese scholars predict that global peak oil production will occur in 2027 with a peak annual output of 4.03 billion tons. Pang argued that theories predicting that the country's oil and gas output will decline after reaching a peak level in the near future have won significant support from the Chinese government, and that this is reflected in the government's recent push for the development of renewable energy. To date, as many as 63 countries have already passed their peak oil production rate, Pang said.

If China retains its strong dependence on oil and gas resources after it passes such peaks, it will face many challenges, including oil and gas supply shortfalls, a rising dependency on imports as well as soaring consumption of environmentally polluting coal, Pang said.

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