The nation's two major oil and gas companies reported growth in oil and natural gas production during the first half of the year.

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the country's largest oil and gas company, reported a year-on-year increase of 1.4 percent in crude oil production during the first half of 2019, having recorded four years of declining output.

Gas production increased 10 percent during the period and accounted for 70.3 percent of the country's total natural gas production. It is the first time its gas output posted double-digit growth in 10 years, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Sales of natural gas increased 31.7 percent as the company stepped up operations in the high-end market, it said.

On the other hand, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, reported a boost in gas sales by 21.9 percent, or 3.93 billion cubic meters, during the first half of 2019.

Natural gas production increased by 940 million cubic meters, a 6.8 percent increase compared with the same period of the previous year, while that of crude oil rose by 52,000 metric tons during the January-June period compared with a year earlier.

An analyst said the companies' output growth of oil and gas is in accordance with trends in national production.

Li Li, research director at energy consulting company ICIS China, said China remains highly dependent on oil and gas imports so it would be necessary to raise domestic output while ramping up construction of gas storage tanks.

China is likely to witness continuous growth in oil and natural gas imports, she said.

China produced 95.39 million tons of crude oil during the first half of this year, a year-on-year increase of 0.8 percent. Natural gas production reached 86.4 billion cubic meters, up 10.3 percent from the same period of the previous year, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Overseas equity of oil and gas production in CNPC also rose 10.6 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2019. The stable growth of oil and gas output is due to efforts made in enhancing quality, lowering cost and increasing efficiency, the company said.

CNPC pledged to focus further on high-quality development of its overseas oil and gas operations.