China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) recently held its 2025 Annual Oil and Gas Exploration Conference, reviewing exploration achievements in 2025 and during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and outlining key tasks for the 15th Five-Year Plan and beyond.

Dai Houliang, Chairman of CNPC and Secretary of the Party Leadership Group, attended the meeting and stressed the importance of thoroughly studying and implementing General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions on strengthening domestic oil and gas exploration and development. He called on the company to stay true to its mission, forge ahead with determination, and continuously promote high-quality development of upstream oil and gas businesses, making new contributions to safeguarding national energy security and building China into a strong energy nation.

Dai fully affirmed the achievements made in oil and gas exploration. He noted that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, CNPC’s exploration system actively pursued large-scale, high-quality reserves and achieved a series of major breakthroughs and discoveries, supporting new record highs in oil and gas production. In particular, since the beginning of this year, efforts focused on fostering a virtuous cycle of reserve growth and production increase have delivered multiple new breakthroughs through efficient exploration and large-scale reserve additions.

Dai emphasized the need to resolutely shoulder the political responsibility of building an energy powerhouse, strengthen historical commitment, carry forward CNPC’s proud legacy, enhance efficient oil and gas supply capacity, and reinforce the role of oil and gas as the cornerstone of national energy security.

He highlighted the importance of achieving a high-level balance between reserves and production, calling for a clear understanding of changes in CNPC’s reserve-to-production ratio since the beginning of the new century, and for targeted efforts to address weaknesses and accelerate the formation of a virtuous cycle of reserve growth and output increase.

Dai further required the company to vigorously implement major strategic initiatives such as the “Reserve-to-Production Ratio Stabilization Project” and the “Enhanced Oil Recovery Cornerstone Project,” ensuring that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period the reserve-to-production ratio remains rigidly stable at the 2025 level, thereby promoting high-quality development of oil and gas exploration and development.

He urged CNPC to benchmark against advanced peers, honestly recognize gaps in business philosophy, work approaches, and technological innovation, and actively learn from best practices. The company should adhere to efficient exploration and high-quality reserve additions, strengthen conventional resource exploration, increase the proportion of new discoveries from field extensions, intensify breakthroughs in unconventional resource exploration, and fully leverage the strict gatekeeping role of reserve management centers to ensure a hard-stable reserve-to-production ratio through quality reserves.

Dai also called for an emphasis on efficient development, comprehensive measures to enhance reserve growth in mature oil and gas fields, refined cost control in development, and deeper reforms to strengthen management. This includes advancing market-oriented reforms, improving engineering and technical management capabilities, and reinforcing mineral rights protection and management.

Finally, he stressed the need to focus on value creation, further tap the potential of existing exploration areas, actively expand high-quality new projects, and improve the quality and efficiency of overseas exploration, while placing political discipline first and carrying forward the petroleum spirit, the Daqing spirit, the Iron Man spirit, and the fine traditions of rigor and integrity.