China's biggest oil discovery in the past decade is a field near
Dalian in the northern part of Bohai Bay, run independently by the
country's top oil company PetroChina, an industry insider revealed
yesterday.
"I know they have taken six drilling vessels there ... What kind
of a field needs six vessels to drill at the same time?" said the
source - who did not want to be named - implying that it's a
gigantic project.
PetroChina, China's top oil and gas producer, recently announced
that it discovered a "very rich" oilfield at Bohai Bay. With an
initial daily output of 500 tons, the field is "the largest finding
in China in the past 10 years", according to Jiang Jiemin,
vice-chairman and president of PetroChina.
He did not reveal the total reserves, saying only that a
detailed announcement would be made in the first half of this
year.
This "very rich" oilfield, as the insider said, is near Dalian,
a coastal city in Northeast China, and is located in shallow
waters, about five meters below the sea level.
"As a traditional onshore oil powerhouse, it is natural for
PetroChina to explore near the shoreline," the source said.
Before the discovery of the new Bohai oilfield, China's largest
fossil-fuel reserve find in 10 years was a 400-million-ton oilfield
in Northwest China, also operated by PetroChina.
Han Xuegong, a veteran consultant with China National Petroleum
Company (CNPC), PetroChina's parent firm, said, "I don't have a
clue as to where the new field is located. But based on the
information available, the discovery was very likely made by
PetroChina's new offshore drilling branch," Han said.
To tap the potentially ample reserves near the coastline,
PetroChina established an offshore exploration company by
transferring personnel and resources from its Dagang and Liaohe
oilfields around the Bohai Bay area, Han said.
The discovery is a result of the efforts by Chinese oil
companies focusing on local block exploration and production, said
the CNPC consultant.
"Major oil firms in China follow a consistent strategy give
priority to domestic oil and gas exploration and production. That's
why they come up with such rich strikes like the new Bohai field,"
Han said.
Another Chinese energy giant, Sinopec, Asia's largest refiner,
is reported to have discovered a huge gas field in Southwest
China's Sichuan Province.
Sinopec is also tight-lipped about its latest discovery.
According to local media reports, the reserves of this field very
likely exceeds that of Puguang, a gas field also in Sichuan
Province. Puguang's proven reserves, according to the Xinhua News
Agency, are over 500 billion cubic meters.
(China Daily March 23, 2007)