Joint efforts are being made by government authorities from Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, and Ningxia and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions to crack down on oil theft.

It comes after oilfields in those areas were ransacked of their oil.

The four partner regions mapped out a plan early this month to deal with people stealing crude oil by drilling holes and opening wells in the oil and gas fields.

Zhang Fushun, an official with the Shaanxi Oil and Gas Production Administration Office, announced the moves recently.

Zhang said the drive was being carried out in 17 counties and districts of the four provinces and regions where the Changqing Oilfield and Yanchang Oilfield, two of China's major state-owned crude oil production bases, are located.

"It is part of a nationwide move that plans to be carried out separately in May and October in China's crude oil production areas. It aims to keep the proper order in the four major crude oil production areas," the official said.

According to Yao Yuan, deputy director of the Gansu Provincial Public Security Department, the four partners' cooperation would make the fight against oil theft more effective.

This was because police in different provinces and regions could easily concentrate on one case, he said.

"We have been fighting against such crimes for years, but with the sharp requirement of oil in the market, the cases have increased," said Wang Rui, director of Shaanxi Provincial Public Security Department.

Northern Shaanxi, one of China's first areas where oil was discovered, is rich in oil reserves and is home to a number of state-owned oil production firms which are suffering the worst losses, according to local official sources.

Zhao Xiansheng, an official with the Yanchang Oilfield Administration Bureau, said that the Yanchang Oilfield has some 2,000 oil wells in northern Shaanxi, which loses 2 tons of crude oil through theft every day.

"The price is 2,000 yuan (US$250) per ton of the crude oil, and our one well will lose more than 1.4 million yuan (US$172,600) every year," the official said.

A local farmer named Wang Hui said that oil theft and sales has become a major means of income for many local farmers who can get more than 8,000 yuan (US$1,000) per month, much more than the income from farming.

According to information from the Ministry of Public Security, in 2005, a total of 4,285 cases of illegal oil businesses were uncovered, with a crack down on 221 oil crime gangs bringing the arrest of 2,877 suspects.

And 1,553 illegal refinery factories and 234 illegal extraction wells were closed, 1,220 vehicles for illegal oil transporting were seized and more than 20,000 tons of crude oil were returned, national police information revealed.

Experts have pointed out that the improvement and maintenance of oil production orders not only depended on severely curtailing oil theft crimes. They said that there should be related laws and regulations to provide legal safeguards for normal oil and natural gas production.

And the assignment of benefits produced by oil production should also be shared to balance the central and local tax revenues, said Li Zhixue, an expert on the oil economy and professor of Xi'an Oil University.

"The government should make severe measures to control the oil production orders, and also, it should give some benefit from raising oil prices to local farmers," the professor said.

(China Daily May 12, 2006)