China will adopt new standards to calculate and register its verified oil and natural gas reserves to get accurate data.

The calculation will be based on the Classification of Resources and Reserves of Oil and Natural Gas, a new national standard that was implemented beginning Oct.1, Vice Minister of Land and Resources (MLR) Wang Min said Thursday.

He said that the calculation will focus on the geological reserves and workable reserves of the country's oil and natural gas to facilitate their rational utilization and protection.

A leading group has been established to direct the work, which includes members of MLR and three state-owned oil companies, he said. The work will be completed by the middle of 2006.

China's booming economy is feeling the pinch caused by shortages of energy resources, including oil. Experts predicted that country's oil imports will jump by nearly 10 percent this year to 100 million tons, accounting for 40 percent of the total consumed.

To ease energy shortages, the Chinese government stepped up the prospecting and extraction of domestic oil and natural gas resources.

Last year alone, the country spent 22.7 billion yuan (about 2.7billion US dollars) on the prospecting of oil and natural gas resources, a jump of 20.55 percent from the previous year.

Official figures indicate that China has 106.9 billion tons of oil reserves and 53 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves.

However, it is estimated that the workable oil deposits are between 13 billion tons and 16 billion tons, while that of naturalgas amounts to between 10 to 15 trillion cubic meters.