Chinanews, Urumqi, March 6 - Karamay, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has put quite a large amount of money and effort on the development of its rich natural gas resource to meet the great energy demand, particularly clean energy in China.

Karamay was proved to be a great oil field in the 1950s, and 240 million tons of crude oil have been extracted here.

The construction of its first gas well will be started in March, 2007, and another 2 will be drilled within this year. The 3 wells will have a total daily capacity of 1.5 million cubic meters, most of which will be sent to north Xinjiang.

The Drilling Company of Xinjiang Regional Petroleum Administration will be responsible for the drilling of the wells.

“We have prepared nearly 100 drills to drill natural gas wells in the Junggar Basin,” said Zhang Changan from the Drilling Company.

It is estimated that there should be a 2-trillion-cubic-meter natural gas reserve in Karamay, but only 70 billion cubic meters have been verified, so far, about 3.5% of the total.