China National Offshore Oil Company Limited said yesterday that it had begun trial production at a new oilfield cluster in the South China Sea.

The field's current daily output had reached 14,000 barrels with seven wells under trial production.

Located in the Pearl River mouth basin in the South China Sea off the coast of Guangdong Province, CNOOC's Wenchang oilfield cluster consists of four separate oilfields - 19-1, 15-1, 14-3 and 8-3.

Wenchang 19-1 is the first to start production, and its peak daily production is expected to reach more than 18,800 barrels. The other three fields will come on stream this year.

Five wellhead platforms, one floating production storage and offloading unit and 26 producing wells are expected to be built at the Wenchang cluster, the company said.

"Joint development of these four oilfields, which are geologically close to each other, was adopted to reduce costs as well as exploit the reserves more efficiently," said Liu Jian, CNOOC executive vice president, which holds 100-percent interest of the fields and acts as the operator.

(Xinhua News Agency?July 3, 2008)