China plans up to $44 bln offshore oil expansion-paper

SHANGHAI, Sept 2 (Reuters) - China plans to spend 250 billion to 300 billion yuan ($36.71 billion-$44.05 billion) under its new five-year development plan to boost offshore oil production, the official China Securities Journal reported on Thursday.

The investment aims to increase China's offshore oil production capacity by 50 million metric tonnes by 2015, the newspaper reported, citing Jin Xiaojian, general manager at CNOOC's engineering department.

CNOOC is China's top oil and gas producer.

(Reporting by Soo Ai Peng and Farah Master; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)