PETROCHINA Co, the nation's biggest oil company, said its Qinghai field in northwest China will produce the equivalent of 10 million metric tons (73.3 million barrels) of oil by 2010 to meet domestic demand for energy.

PetroChina will produce 5.5 million tons of oil equivalent from the field this year, an increase of at least 10 percent from last year's levels, parent China National Petroleum Corp said in a statement on its Website yesterday. Oil output will be about 2.25 million tons this year, it said.

China, the world's biggest energy user after the US, is encouraging its oil and gas producers to step up output to meet rising consumption spurred by an economy that surged 11.9 percent in the second quarter, Bloomberg News said. The nation's oil demand will gain 5.9 percent to 7.6 million barrels a day this year, according to an earlier forecast.