(Yicai Global) March 24 -- China will promote the integration of crude oil and natural gas exploration with development of new energy sources, according to a document released by the National Energy Administration two days ago.

The plan shows that by 2025, oil and gas firms will be encouraged to develop and use green power, develop new energy sources, and promote onshore oil and gas exploration and development along with wind and solar power generated and consumed domestically. This will basically help form a complementary power supply model for offshore wind power and oil and gas field regional power systems.

Petroleum and petrochemical firms, represented by China’s three oil majors -- China National Petroleum, Sinopec, and China National Offshore Oil, or CNOOC -- have created new energy industry layouts in recent years to promote energy transformation and upgrade.

Yicai Global found that Sinopec has invested and cooperated in key technologies, facilities and materials for the preparation, storage, addition and use of hydrogen since 2019, forming a hydrogen energy industry chain network.

It has so far built 74 hydrogen refueling stations, more than 1,000 charging and swapping stations as well as over 1,000 distributed solar power plants. And, Sinopec plans to build 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations or oil-hydrogen mixing stations and 5,000 charging and battery-swapping stations by 2025.

China National Petroleum, meanwhile, is seeking to vigorously deploy the clean conversion of fossil energy in the hydrogen industry chain and carbon capture and storage and carbon capture, utilization and storage by 2025, and explore the clean development and use of fossil energy at a lower cost.

CNOOC has accelerated the development of offshore wind power and opted for developing onshore solar power. Chief Financial Officer Xie Weizhi recently said that 5 percent to 10 percent of the firm’s annual capital expenditure will be used on offshore wind power to maintain the pace of energy transition in sync with the world.

Everbright Securities said that in the context of increasing oil and gas supplies and promoting the construction of new energy projects, PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC are expected to achieve coordinated growth of oil and gas exploration and development and energy transformation.

Editor: Peter Thomas