May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Japan and China will cooperate on technology to extract crude oil by injecting carbon dioxide into wells, the Nikkei newspaper reported today.

Toyota Motor Corp., JGC Corp., China National Petroleum Corp. and China Huadian Corp. will participate in the project, which is expected to cost as much as 30 billion yen ($285 million), the Japanese-language newspaper reported, without saying where it obtained the information. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and China's President Hu Jintao are expected to agree on the plan at their May 7 meeting in Tokyo, the Nikkei said.

The technology involves injecting carbon dioxide emitted from a coal-fired power plant in Harbin, northeast China, into the Daqing oil field, helping make crude oil less viscous and thus easier to extract, the newspaper said.

The project will start next year, aiming to increase annual oil production at Daqing by as much as 2 million tons, from more than 40 million tons, the Nikkei said.

Telephone calls by Bloomberg News to Toyota and JGC weren't answered. Cao Peixi, president of Huadian, and Jiang Jiemin, president of China National, couldn't be reached for comment on their office phones today.

To contact the reporter for this story: Masaki Kondo in Tokyo at mkondo3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 3, 2008 00:18 EDT