The West Qurna-1 oilfield in Iraq, one of the world's largest oilfields, has reached a production milestone in PetroChina's first year as the lead contractor.
Located 50 kilometers northwest of Basra in southern Iraq, the West Qurna-1 oilfield holds geological reserves of 10 billion tons, with an estimated remaining recoverable amount of 3.06 billion tons. It's annual output of crude oil exceeds 25 million tons.
PetroChina, one of China's major oil and gas producers and distributors, replaced ExxonMobil as the lead contractor for the West Qurna-1 oilfield, holding the largest stake, with development officially kicking off on Jan 1, 2024.
Since then, PetroChina has helped steadily increase production at the oilfield to 550,000 barrels per day.
The Iraqi government has given credit to PetroChina for Iraq's energy development sector.
"The oilfield is currently being developed by PetroChina, which has made significant efforts to continue its development, increasing its daily production to 550,000 barrels. The company also prioritizes regional public welfare, delivering benefits to the local community by rebuilding roads, providing essential services, and creating more jobs in the area," said Hayyan Abdul Ghani, Iraqi deputy prime minister for energy affairs and minister of oil.
Looking ahead, the oilfield is aiming for further production increases.
"With the help of PetroChina, we have witnessed significant progress in both oilfield production and local livelihoods. The company has also provided services to local communities living near the oilfield. There have been notable improvements in the oilfield's development plans, production capacity, and crude oil quality. We are confident that we will ultimately achieve a daily production of 800,000 barrels, and even reach 1.2 million barrels," said Bassem Al-Ghalabi, deputy general manager of Basra Oil Company.
PetroChina-led operations push Iraqi oilfield to record output
China will intensify its efforts to expand the availability of high-quality educational resources and further enhance the quality of its higher education system, Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in Beijing on Thursday.
Zheng outlined several key measures designed to enhance the country's education sector and better adapt to the changes in its school-age population, at the press conference held on the sidelines of the third session of 14th National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature.
"In response to changes in the school-age population in the coming years, we will expand the supply of high-quality educational resources and implement various measures, such as balancing teacher allocation, to integrate more schools into group-based education or trustee assistance programs. Our goal is to establish tens of thousands of new and high-quality schools for compulsory education, and build thousands of high-standard general high schools," he said.
Zheng also emphasized China's commitment to continuously enhancing the quality of education and ensuring more students have access to higher education.
"At the same time, continuous efforts will be made to enhance and elevate the quality of higher education, including expanding access to high-quality undergraduate colleges and increasing enrollment at universities under the 'Double World-Class Project.' Last year, enrollment at high-quality undergraduate colleges rose by 16,000 students, and this year, the goal is to further increase the enrollment by an additional 20,000 students. In short, we will strive to ensure that more students have access to fairer and higher-quality education," said Zheng.
China unveiled the "double world-class project" in 2017, which aimed at building 42 world-class universities and developing hundreds of world-class academic disciplines covering 95 universities.
China to boost educational resources, enhance higher education: official
