Yanchang Petroleum, China's fourth biggest oil company, said Friday it plans to explore for natural gas and oil in northeastern Thailand's Khorat Basin.
"This marks a breakthrough in our efforts to explore for oil and gas overseas," the state-owned company, which is based in northern China's Shaanxi province, said in a statement on its Web site.
The news followed the signing of an agreement with Thailand's energy minister, Wannarat Channukul, and Yanchang's chairman, Shen Hao, on Thursday.
The pact will license Yanchang to drill for oil and natural gas in block No. L31/50 in the Khorat Basin, where two gas fields are already in production.
Yanchang Petroleum was founded in the early years of the 20th century and is China's fourth biggest oil company after China National Petroleum Corp., China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. and offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC. It reported its crude and refined oil output in 2009 was over 11 million tons.
Like China's bigger energy companies, Yanchang is diversifying from its own resource-rich base in Shaanxi. In January it announced a plan to buy a 15 percent stake in and set up a joint venture with Sino Union Energy Investment Group, which runs oil fields in Madagascar.
