Overseas oil and gas production in the first six months by China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) increased 30,000 tons or 219,000 barrels per day (bpd) from a year earlier, the top Chinese oil producer said in a company newspaper on Thursday.

The parent of PetroChina did not say how much oil and gas it produced in the first half, but CNPC had set a target to produce at least 2 million bpd of oil equivalent in overseas fields it operates and raise its foreign equity oil output to 1 million bpd this year.

CNPC produced 1.73 million bpd of oil equivalent in foreign oil and gas fields it operated in 2010.

Newly-discovered recoverable oil reserves in the first six months accounted for 53.8 percent of the full-year plan and new gas deposits made up for 57.6 percent of the full-year target, the China Petroleum Daily reported.

It did not disclose reserves volumes.

The central Asia gas pipeline transported 7.31 billion cubic metres of gas in the first half and guaranteed gas supplies to domestic market, the report added.

The nearly 2,000-kilometre pipeline operated by CNPC started pumping gas from Turkmenistan to China from late 2009, and is scheduled to carry some 17 bcm of gas to China in 2011.