Shanghai, August 23 :

China plans to spend 800 million yuan ($100 million) over the next decade on studying natural gas hydrates, an alternative fuel Beijing hopes might help to limit its growing reliance on oil imports, the government said today.

Trial exploration of methane hydrate, a crystalline compound of water and natural gas, is expected to become viable between 2010 and 2015, the government planning agency said in a report. But the National Development and Reform Commission said that further technological breakthroughs were necessary before the fuel would be commercially developed. Methane hydrate reserves, found in abundance in ocean beds, are thought to be equivalent in energy value to at least twice the amount of fossil fuels needed to meet global energy demand for 1,000 years, the report stated.

It said the energy generated by each cubic meter of hydrate is equal to that released by up to 180 cubic meters of natural gas. Competition for such resources could add to friction between countries with conflicting claims to ocean territory, such as those already simmering between Japan, South Korea and China.

China plans to work with German researchers to sample hydrate deposits in the northern part of the South China Sea within a year. “China so far has discovered enormous reserv-es of gas hydrates in offsh-ore areas in the northern p-art of the South China Sea.”