Under the deal signed Sunday, the partners will jointly search for gas in the block, which covers an onshore and offshore area of 8,089 square kilometres (3,125 square miles), they said in a joint statement.

Shell, as operator, will hold a 75-percent share in the project while PetroChina will take the remaining 25 percent, according to the statement.

Shell and PetroChina will produce the natural gas under Qatar Petroleum's supervision and the Qatari company will buy any gas produced, it said.

PetroChina is the listed arm of China's top oil and gas producer, state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.

"China is an important downstream market and PetroChina is keen to build upstream partnerships with major resource holders like Qatar," PetroChina official Zhao Dong, who signed the deal in Doha, said in the statement.

No financial details were disclosed.

Qatar is the world's top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and has the world's third-largest LNG reserves, after Russia and Iran.

In 2008, PetroChina signed an agreement with Shell and Qatar Petroleum International to study building a new refinery in China.

The company also signed in the same year another deal with Qatargas and Shell under which the Chinese firm would buy three million tonnes of Qatari LNG per year for 25 years.

China is scouring the globe for energy to feed its booming economy, which grew by 11.9 percent in the first quarter of the year.

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