Key points
- Newly found oilfield not in disputed part of South China Sea
- Lies within China’s Exclusive Economic Zone
- China remains world’s largest importer of crude oil
- It received 11.1m barrels per day last year
ISLAMABAD: The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has discovered an oilfield in the South China Sea with proven reserves exceeding 100 million tonnes.
Xinhua news agency reported that the newly found Huizhou 19-6 oilfield is not in a disputed part of the South China Sea and lies within China’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
China’s Exclusive Economic Zone runs for 200 nautical miles or 370 km from its coast.
The Reuters news agency also reported that the oilfield, around 170 km (106 miles) off the coast of Shenzhen, sits at an average water depth of 100 metres.
The report said that test drilling has yielded a daily production of 413 barrels of crude oil and 68,000 cubic metres of natural gas.
“Successive breakthroughs”
The state-owned oil giant’s CEO, Zhou Xinhuai, hailed “successive breakthroughs in oil and gas exploration in the eastern waters of the South China Sea”.
CNOOC “has discovered 100-million-ton oilfields for two consecutive years, which creates a new growth pole for the continuous growth in offshore oil and gas production,” he added.
The US Energy Information Administration says the South China Sea is mostly underexplored because of territorial disputes, but most discovered oil and gas are in uncontested areas, according to AFP.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its own, but this is disputed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brunei.
CNOOC Chief Geologist Xu Changgui said the discovery was a “major breakthrough”.
“The discovery proved the largest clastic whole oil field in the northern part of the South China Sea in terms of geological reserves, breaking through traditional theoretical understanding,” he said.
China remains the world’s largest importer of crude oil, receiving 11.1 million barrels a day last year, according to US government analysis.
