In a happily synchronized announcement, China's top oil
producing and offshore oil companies simultaneously unveiled major
discoveries yesterday.
PetroChina announced the discovery of a "very rich" oil field in
Bohai Bay, the biggest such find in China for a decade while CNOOC
(China National Offshore Oil Corp.) revealed it had made an
"exciting find", also in Bohai Bay.
The PetroChina discovery will bear a yield increase for the
biggest national oil producer, particularly when combined alongside
the huge new gas field the company recently unearthed in Sichuan Province.
With an initial daily output of 500 tons (3,700 barrels), the
Bohai Bay field is "the largest find in China in 10 years," Jiang
Jiemin, vice-chairman and president of PetroChina, said while
briefing in Hong Kong yesterday.
Although he did not provide information on the total reserves of
the Bohai oil field, it was confirmed that the Sichuan gas field
possesses a daily capacity of 1 million cubic meters.
"The two new fields are milestone discoveries. They have very
steady output so far," said Jiang.
PetroChina currently operates six domestic oil and gas fields,
each possessing an individual annual output surpassing 10 million
tons of oil.
Prior to these twin discoveries, China's largest fossil fuel
find in the last 10 years had been a 400-million-ton oil field in
northwest China, also found by PetroChina.
Meanwhile, CNOOC stole some of PetroChina's limelight with news
that their own Bohai Bay discovery had tentatively yielded 1,600
barrels of oil in a test and could provide approximately 10 million
cubic feet of gas per day.
Zhu Weilin, vice-president of CNOOC, said: "We hope to develop a
large-scale cluster of oil and gas fields (there) in the
future."
The "encouraging" discoveries will come as a significant relief
to China's unquenchable thirst for energy and increase the
potential for eventual energy independence, according to Han
Xuegong, a senior consultant at CNPC, PetroChina's parent
company.
"Major oil firms in China share common strategic priorities for
domestic oil and gas exploration and production. These discoveries
will affirm these strategies and provide stronger business bases
for local oil and gas fields," Han said.
As production output at existing oil fields continues its gentle
slide, oil companies are exploring all avenues to provide new input
and maintain the country's energy stability.
"Oil and gas fields located in east China are generally older
and are witnessing decreasing output. Therefore, these new
discoveries are especially significant," Han pointed out.
Pressured by a demanding domestic market, PetroChina raised its
production to top 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent last year
with crude oil accounting for 831 million barrels thereof.
Jiang also predicted that PetroChina's oil output could well
rise to 2.3 million barrels a day this year, with gas production
following this trend, peaking 4.56 billion cubic feet a day. The
company's refineries are set to process over 2.25 million barrels
of crude daily.
On the back of a strong 2006 where it registered a turnover of
689 billion yuan (US$89 billion), PetroChina's bottom line could
suffer this year as capital spending is forced up by 25 percent due
to the company's need to drill deeper and further afield in its
quest for oil and gas.
(China Daily March 20, 2007)