BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- China National Petroleum Corp. and Unocal East China Sea Ltd., a subsidiary of Chevron Corp. (CVX), have signed an agreement to start joint development of the Luojiazhai gas field in the northeast of Sichuan province, CNPC said in its official newsletter Thursday.
It will be China's largest upstream onshore project with a foreign partner, CNPC said.
The area covers nearly 2,000 square kilometers and has an estimated resource base of 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The first phase of the $4.7 billion natural gas project was approved by China's National Development and Reform Commission last week, Chevron Corp. said earlier.
The regulatory approval came almost two years after Chevron signed a 30-year production sharing agreement with CNPC to develop the area.
Chevron has a 49% stake, and the remainder is held by the state-owned CNPC.
Wan Xu contributed to this article; Dow Jones Newswires; 8610-84007799; wan.xu@dowjones.com