China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and its French partner Total SA will start producing gas from the Sulige South field in north China next month, a company executive said.

The announcement is largely in line with earlier plans.

"It would take three years for the field to reach its designed production capacity," Zhang Yushan, vice president of Total's China unit, was quoted as saying by Caijing magazine on Wednesday.

Total and CNPC, the parent of PetroChina Co Ltd , signed a 30-year production-sharing contract in 2006 for the evaluation, development and production of the Sulige South gas block that covers 2,390 square kilometres.

CNPC has a 51 percent of stake in the project and is the operator, while Total holds the remaining 49 percent and provides technology and management.

CNPC has said production in the field would begin in 2012 and about 450 wells would be drilled before production reaches 3 billion cubic metres per year.