China's largest oil base Daqing Oilfield has fulfilled its production target by stabilizing its crude oil output above 40 million tonnes the past year although its reserve has been on the decline.

    The 2008 crude oil output stood at 40.2 million tonnes, which was the smallest in three years if compared to the 41.7 million tonnes in 2007 and 43.41 million tonnes in 2006.

    Its 2008 natural gas output hit 2.76 billion cubic meters, up 8.241 percent from the 2.55 billion cubic meters in 2007.

    The field, administered by the China National Petroleum, was discovered in 1959 and began to produce oil the next year and now accounts for nearly 25 percent of the country's total crude output.

    Having kept its annual crude oil output at more than 50 million tonnes for 27 consecutive years, the oilfield in northeastern China had to scale back its production on dwindling reserve so as to sustain its development.

    However, as the prices of crude oil fluctuated turbulently on global market last year, the company had hoped to maintain its output above 40 million tonnes to ease the shortage on home turf.

    Under the 2006-2010 plan, the field will cut its crude output to 38 million tonnes by 2010 and 31 million tonnes by 2020.

    Another vintage oilfield Shengli, developed 44 years ago on China's eastern coast, saw its 2008 crude oil output rise for 10 years in a row to 27.74 million tonnes, up 40,000 tonnes from 2007level.

    Run by the China Petrochemical, Shengli attributed its output expansion to continuous improvement in technical innovation. More than three million tonnes of crude oil output were generated by such innovations every year, the company said.

    To meet its rising energy demand for economic development, China has counted on more advanced technologies when it came to the exploitation of vintage oilfields.

    In a separate report released by PetroChina, the nation's leading oil producer, the country was forecast to produce 189 million tonnes of crude oil in 2008, a growth of 1.61 percent over the 186 million tonnes the previous year.

    The production would rank the nation fifth among all oil producing countries of the world.