China Daily reported that with a Chinese company development of techniques useful in the recovery of coal-bed methane, the country is in a good position to produce that resource at a low cost and reduce its dependency on imports.

Trapped in coal deposits, the special type of methane is one among several types of high energy unconventional gases that are expected to become important sources of the country's energy.

According to the UK consultancy Wood Mackenzie, coal-bed methane could contribute 14% of China domestic supply of gas by 2030. But because of a lack of expertise in techniques used to retrieve it, the resource is still little used in China.

Even so, progress has been made toward increasing the country's output of coal bed methane. The China National Petroleum Corp, or CNPC, China's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, has introduced a commercial application of a technique known as multi-branched horizontal well-drilling, which can be used to explore for coal-based methane at a low cost.

Mr Shen Ruichen director of CNPC's coal-based methane and reservoir project institute said "CNPC recently signed contracts with several domestic companies to explore for coal-bed methane and provide them with the independently-produced components needed to produce the gas. That will speed up the production."

Mr Shen didn't disclose the companies' names. He said that “This independent knowledge will support the low-cost exploration for coal-bed methane," Shen said. "By 2015, a quarter of the exploration for the gas will be done with the use of independent multi-branched horizontal wells."

Before CNPC's technological advance, foreign groups had largely held a monopoly over the production of equipment needed to connect horizontal and vertical mine shafts underground, a requirement in multi-branched horizontal drilling. That made it expensive for Chinese companies to obtain those important components. In the past, CNPC had to use imported connecting equipment to operate multiple horizontal shafts.

CNPC said multi-branched horizontal wells are capable of producing up to 10 times as much of the gas a day as are vertical shafts.