China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the country's largest oil company and parent of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina Co, is preparing for two joint ventures to explore for natural gas and build pipelines in Turkmenistan, the oil producer said yesterday.

CNPC has established teams for Amu Darya River Natural Gas Corp and Sino-Turkmenistan Gas Pipe Corp last Friday, the Beijing-based State-owned oil company said.

It added that it had signed two contracts to purchase natural gas from the Central Asian country to help satisfy China's surging energy demand from the fast-growing economy. China aims to increase the use of the clean fuel to five percent of its total energy consumption by 2010 from the current three percent to lessen dependence on coal and oil.

This marks the official launch of the Sino-Turkmenistan gas projects, the Chinese company said.

Turkmenistan will export 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually to China over 30 years, to be transported through a pipeline that the Central Asian country and CNPC will jointly build, said Bloomberg News.

China and Turkmenistan will carry out joint exploration and development of gas fields along the Amu Darya River in Turkmenistan near the Turkmen-Uzbek border, Interfax news agency said in April last year.

Turkmenistan has an estimated 23.1 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, and plans to produce up to 240 billion cubic meters a year, according to the local media.