In its campaign to reduce energy imports, China will spend US $100 million in the next 10 years on hydrate research. The nation’s goal is to find and evaluate hydrates some time between 2010 and 2015. China has abundant hydrate resources offshore and could use the produced gas to help limit imports of gas from Australia. Hydrates in the northern part of the South China Sea equal about half of the energy equivalent of the nations 155.4 billion bbl oil resources onshore. Chinese scientists also are looking at coal-to-liquids conversion. For example, China Shenhua Group has lined up with South Africa’s Sasol and Shell on a coal-to-liquids project. The nation wants to covert coal to about 220 million bbl of liquids by 2020. China National Coal Group Corp. also is partnering with Sinopec to build a US $2.6 billion coal-to-methanol plant.