BEIJING, March 15 -- China's natural gas output logged steady growth in the first two months of 2023, data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows.

The country produced 39.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the period, up 6.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the bureau.

The growth rate was 0.2 percentage points higher than that of December 2022, the bureau said.

China's crude oil output rose 1.8 percent year on year to 34.17 million tonnes during the same period, the data also shows.