China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) was in talks with Russia's struggling oil major Yukos on restarting rail-borne crude oil exports to China that were suspended at the end of September, the biggest oil and gas producer in China said in Beijing Thursday.

State-owned CNPC, parent of Hong Kong and New York-listed PetroChina Co. Ltd., said in a statement it expressed regret that Yukos had not yet resumed the crude oil exports.

"We are going to continue to discuss this with Yukos in the future," it said without elaborating.

The statement also noted recent reports that it was pursuing legal action against Yukos, but neither confirmed or denied them.

Yukos suspended crude oil exports of about 100,000 barrels a day to CNPC in September due to financial difficulties, which compounded China's energy crunch in recent years.

In a separate development, CNPC has formed an offshore oil engineering subsidiary, aiming to boost its offshore oil exploitation and production both in domestic waters and abroad.

The new company is expected to quadruple its offshore production to 4 million tons from the current 1 million tons by 2010.

Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies