CNOOC to diversify LNG imports: Report

National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), the country's dominant producer of offshore oil and gas, said Monday it plans to diversify its import sources for liquid natural gas (LNG), agency reported.

"We would like to diversify our import sources," the company's deputy chief economist Zhang Weiping said at a business conference in Beijing.

The firm is looking at Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia as potential areas for LNG, Zhang said, but did not expand on how these would be developed.

According to analysts, CNOOC will need as much as 80-100 million tons of gas annually by 2015 to supply its terminals and China's increasingly energy-hungry cities.

Last month, the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top planning body, limited each Chinese province to one LNG terminal.

Zhang said that stand made little sense.

"China has enough demand for more than one terminal per province," he said.(*)