China has released a list of projects that will be exempt from some centralised administrative approvals; for the selected projects, the streamlined bureaucratic process will cut 1/3 of the 1,700 administrative procedures involved in project approval.
New oilfields with a production capacity over 1 Mt/year and new gas fields with a production over 2 bcm/year will no longer require approvals from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Exploration and development of new oil and gas fields will be designated as independent company operations and thus exempt from NDRC sanction. Moreover, two categories of gas projects, namely investment in distributed gas-fired power plants and inter-provincial oil and gas transmission pipeline networks, that were previously subject to NDRC approvals, will be transferred to local governments. The directive does not apply to transprovincial and international pipeline projects. Shale gas projects will remain subjects to the NDRC approval.
Interested in Global Energy Research?
Enerdata's premium online information service provides up-to-date market reports on 110+ countries. The reports include valuable market data and analysis as well as a daily newsfeed, curated by our energy analysts, on the oil, gas, coal and power markets.
This user-friendly tool gives you the essentials about the domestic markets of your concern, including market structure, organisation, actors, projects and business perspectives.