It is very important to establish the concept of global chain energy security, while energy producers and consumers and oil companies should work together since energy security is no longer an independent issue for any nation or region, Zhou Jiping, general manager of China National Petroleum Corp, the country's largest oil and gas producer said on Tuesday.

He made the comments at the 6th International Petroleum Technology Conference, hosted and sponsored by CNPC in Beijing.

The theme of this year's conference is "Challenging Technology and Economic Limits to Meet the Global Energy Demand".

As US shale gas development is changing the global energy supply and demand scope, China is working on accelerating its shale gas development during the 12th Five-Year-Plan period (2011-15), aiming at realizing the commercialized production.

During the process, many foreign oil and gas companies are cooperating with Chinese companies to co-develop shale gas resources, contributing their advanced technology.

CNPC and Shell signed an agreement in March last year to co-develop shale gas resources in the Fushun-Yongchuan block in Sichuan Basin and made significant progress in October.

"Our partnership with CNPC is to reach great efficiency and lower costs with fewer people and less noise," Peter Voser, CEO of Shell, said during the CEO plenary session of the conference.

He said the strong partnership will become more critical for energy in the future.

"For China, natural gas is a more promising resource compared with coal," he said.

Zhou agreed, saying that the natural gas industry has entered into a golden period.

By the year 2035, global natural gas consumption will increase by 50 percent compared with the level in 2010, accounting for more than 25 percent of primary energy consumption.

dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn