China has become the world’s third-largest shale gas producer, after only the U.S. and Canada, Iran’s PressTV reports, adding that last year, China pumped almost 8 billion cubic meters of shale gas.

The annual result was a 76.3-percent improvement on 2015, China’s Ministry of Land and Resources said – a record amount. Investments in shale gas exploration reached US$1.3 billion.

Shale gas production in China has continued to grow this year, as it seeks to move away from crude oil and bets increasingly on gas as the cleaner fuel amid government efforts to reduce pollution levels.

Earlier this month, the Ministry announced it will be opening two more production bases for shale gas in the south of China, and it will also schedule more oil and gas exploration tenders. The two bases will be in the Guizhou province and Hubei province. The tender for the US$193-million Guizhou development project took place on August 18 and the winner was a local company, Guizhou Industry Investment (Group) Co.

China has significant shale gas reserves, but they are located in geologically challenging areas, there is no developed production and transportation infrastructure, and exploration rights are limited, as Bloomberg wrote last year. As of the end of 2015, recoverable shale gas reserves stood at 130 billion cu m, compared with 5.19 trillion cubic meters of conventional gas.

One of the largest shale gas deposits in the country is the Fuling field, with proven reserves of 600.8 billion cubic meters.