China's offshore oil and gas giant CNOOC Ltd reported its sales declined in the third quarter because of the sharp fall in crude prices although its output grew strongly.

Its revenue fell 23.1 percent to 23.76 billion yuan (US$3.47 billion) in the July-September quarter, Hong Kong-listed CNOOC reported yesterday after the market closed. It didn't give a profit figure.

The Beijing-based company said the realized crude oil price tumbled 36.6 percent to US$67.83 per barrel in the reporting period from a year earlier, but it still represented a gain of 37.4 percent from that of the first half. The realized gas price rose 2.8 percent, it added.

"In the third quarter, the international oil price rose gradually and the company achieved another remarkable growth in production," Chairman Fu Chengyu said.

The company's total net daily production rose 18.4 percent from a year earlier to 647,382 barrels of oil equivalent in the quarter. The net production overseas jumped 78.9 percent to 122,970 barrels of oil equivalent.

CNOOC was forced to shut down the offshore Huizhou fields in the South China Sea for three weeks in mid-September following a typhoon. The net loss in production due to the damage caused by the typhoon was 2.34 million barrels of oil equivalent, President Yang Hua told reporters in a teleconference.

But Yang said CNOOC is confident of meeting the annual production target of 225 million to 231 million barrels of oil equivalent set at the start of the year.