CHINA Petroleum & Chemical Corp targets annual gas capacity from a new Sichuan field of as much as 2 billion cubic meters by 2010, equivalent to more than a fifth of the company's projected gas production for this year.

Sinopec, as China's second-largest oil company is known, plans to develop the Dayi field next year, parent China Petrochemical Corp said in its Sinopecnews newsletter yesterday.

Dayi, near the cities of Dujiangyan and Pengzhou, will bolster fuel supplies to an area recovering from the most powerful earthquake to hit China in 58 years. Sichuan Province also holds Sinopec's biggest gas field at Puguang.

"It's a pretty impressive field based on the numbers given by the company," Grace Liu, an oil analyst at Guotai Junan Securities Hong Kong Co, told Bloomberg News from the southern city of Shenzhen. "The biggest gas potential still lies in areas around Sinopec's Puguang field, east of Dayi."

Sinopec aims to prove gas reserves of 100 billion cubic meters this year at Dayi, and targets capacity of 1.5 billion to 2 billion cubic meters, equivalent to about 12.6 million barrels of oil, by the end of 2010, the parent said. The oil firm plans to produce 9 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year, according to its annual report.