Chinanews, Beijing, Oct. 19 - As the oil prices drop down in international market, private enterprises in China, constrained by domestic quotas for oil use, try to seek more oil resources from overseas market, the China Business News reported.

From December 6 to 8, the Third Petroleum Forum between China, Russia and Kazakhstan will be held in Shanghai. Organized by the China Chamber of Commerce for Petroleum Industry (CCCPI), the forum will attract various oil giants, business delegates from oil fields, oil refineries, railway transportation companies, airliners, oil pipe transportation companies, and oil exploration companies to attend. The governments of Russia and Kazakhstan will organize high-level delegations to attend the forum.

"By arranging this forum, we hope that private Chinese enterprises will have a chance to fully communicate with oil companies from Russia and Kazakhstan, consequently to seek oil resources independently in overseas market," CCCPI's vice director said on Monday.

He disclosed that next year, CCCPI would organize some domestic enterprises to go to Russia and Kazakhstan to explore the oil resources there.

Constrained by two oil giants in China, Chinese private enterprises hope that they can find new oil resources from overseas market.

"We hope that we can find oil resources outside China and bring them back for processing," said a general manager of a private enterprise in Zhejiang. At present, even if Chinese companies have found oil resources outside China, they can not transport them back, due to domestic oil import quotas policy.

China has so far given its approval for six batches of non-state-owned companies to deal with crude oil or product oil trade: 19 companies to deal with crude oil trade, and 55 companies to deal with product oil trade. The annual import of crude oil by state-owned enterprises accounts for 90% of the total crude oil import in China. In 2007, China will set a quota for non-state-owned companies to import a total of 16.68 million tons of crude oil.