Annual crude oil output at west China's Karamay field topped 11.97 million tonnes as of Monday, about 50,000 tonnes more than the total amount of last year, said a spokesman of the Xinjiang Oilfield Company.

China began exploiting oil resources in the Junggar Basin, in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in 1955 and drilled an oil well at Karamay the same year. The output at the Karamay field has been increasing steadily for 27 straight years since 1981.

Karamay is China's fourth largest onshore oil field and an important petrochemical industrial base for the western regions.

Last year, the field produced almost 11.92 million tonnes of crude oil and almost 2.88 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Xinjiang is the third region in China to have a daily oil output that exceeds 70,000 tonnes after northeast Heilongjiang and east Shandong Provinces.

When the region's petroleum industry started in 1953, the annual oil output was only 70.200 tonnes, about what it now produces per day.

(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2007)