China's largest energy company said it started commercial gas production from a field located in the Sichuan basin in southwest China.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corp., working alongside a subsidiary of U.S. supermajor Chevron, said it started gas operations at the Chuandongbei project, producing gas taken from the Luojiazhai natural gas field.

The gas field has a production capacity of around 345 million cubic feet per day.

China is the world's second-largest economy after the United States. Demand for natural gas is expected to increase from around 6 percent of total energy consumption to more than 10 percent by the end of the decade.

Crude oil prices and major world stock indices have been influenced heavily by Chinese economic growth. The economy there has slowed from double-digit growth in gross domestic product to around 6.9 percent, though that still outpaces many of its peers.

An overview of the Chinese energy sector from The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies finds natural gas demand may increase, though energy consumption as a whole in China is expected to remain moderate over the next 10 years.