TBM, which owns the rights to resources near Lake Zaysan, has crude oil resources of about 1.1 billion tons and is ready to supply feed gas to an LNG plant in north Xinjiang's Jeminay County, Guanghui Energy said.

CNPC taps new gas reservoir

The move is also part of a broader policy reform that the cabinet put out in late May aimed at encouraging private capital in fields such as the infrastructure, telecom and oil and gas sectors.

"It is just the first step in further freeing up the crude oil import market to smaller and private energy players, as China prepares to welcome more privately run enterprises to compete with oil giants and optimize allocation of resources," said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University,

China has fixed the 2014 crude oil import quota for non State-owned companies at 29.1 million metric tons. It also said that companies seeking crude licenses must have registered capital of at least 50 million yuan and access to crude receiving berths and storage facilities of at least 200,000 cubic meters.

Currently, about 30 non-State oil traders are qualified to apply for the crude oil quota, earlier reports said.