|
 CHINA
North Asia
About 90% of China’s oil and gas production still
comes from onshore (of which one third comes from the Daqing field),
despite the introduction of western oil companies to help exploit the
offshore area in 1982.
 Nevertheless
offshore production has increased substantially since it began in 1985,
especially since 1995. China is a net importer of oil and much activity
is now being directed into moving oil from west to east, particularly
from outside China in Kazakhstan and Russia.
 CHINA OIL (FULL FIELD ANALYSIS, no legend)
Gas currently forms only a small part of the energy mix
although this is set to increase considerably as the local companies,
seeing oil prospects dwindle, move to gas exploration and the east-west
pipeline is completed. Oil production from the eastern onshore basins, which
produce 70% of China’s oil has been declining since 1991 but this has
been offset by growth in output from the west and offshore.
 In China three oil companies control the industry.
Sinopec operates mainly in the south and east, PetroChina operates in
the north and west and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)
controls offshore activity. A number of international companies operate
in China, mostly offshore but foreign companies only produce around 5%
of China’s output.
Many oil wells continue to be drilled making China one of
the most intensively drilled countries in the world. What it loses in
modern technology it has gained in very tight well spacing so that
modern EOR is unlikely to yield significant extra oil from existing
fields.
In the west output has grown from the Tarim, Junggar and
Ordos basins where new discoveries are rapidly developed at the same
time as they are delineated. The Hade and Tahe fields in Tarim, the
Luliang field in Junggar and the Xifeng field in Ordos have been rushed
onstream. A high level of drilling has led to a series of large
discoveries.
Offshore: China’s offshore shelf is wide,
extending at least 320 kms offshore for much of its 3,800 km length. The
area covers, from north to south, the Bohai Gulf, the Yellow Sea, the
East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Beibu Gulf (called the Gulf
of Tonkin in Vietnam). The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)
is responsible for most of the offshore.
A number of international companies also operate in
Chinese waters, dominated by BP, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips.
All the basins are Tertiary rifts overlain by deltaic sediments
emanating from rivers draining the Chinese continent. There are around
50
producing fields.
The shallow waters of the Bohai Gulf east of Tianjin
overlie the offshore extension of the North China basin, 200 km east of
Beijing. Here more than 20 oil fields and one gas/condensate field are
producing but average production rates tend to be low due to the heavy
oils present in the western accumulations. However the discovery of the
Jidong field in the Nanpu block in 2006 could lead to significant,
albeit slow, growth in output from this region.
The East China Sea overlies a large basin west of
Shanghai. The Xihu trough, within the basin is the most prospective
area, holding many discoveries mainly of gas and condensate. The China
National Star Petroleum Corporation, a subsidiary of Sinopec, holds most
of the exploration rights in this area. The only production comes from
the small Pinghu gas/condensate field discovered by National Star 375
kms southeast of Shanghai in the early 1990s.
Several other small gas/condensate fields have been
discovered nearby including Chunxiao, Tianwaitian, Dunqiao and Canxue.
CNOOC is developing Chunxiao, located about 350 kms east of Ningbo in
Zhejiang. The basin has a deepwater element (East Donghai basin) but
detailed exploration here has not begun.
The shallow waters of the Pearl River Mouth basin (Nanhai
East) have accounted for most of China’s offshore production, despite
the problems with typhoons, which sweep through the area in late summer.
The first oil fields to come onstream, 100 to 200 kms southeast of Hong
Kong, were Lufeng 13-1 (1993), Xijiang 24-3 (1994), Xijiang 30-2 (1995)
and the Huizhou group of fields (1995). BP’s 1.3 billion barrel Liuhua
11-1 field, the largest field off China, came onstream in 1996 in 300 m
of water using an FPSO and subsea wells.
In 1998 Statoil’s Lufeng 22-1 came onstream using an FPSO
in 332m of water, the deepest development in China. Elsewhere two fields
in the south of the basin, east of Hainan Island (Wenchang 13-1 and
13-2) came onstream through an FPSO in 2001 with Husky operating. In
2003 Devon Energy started production from the Panyu 4-2 and 5-1 fields
discovered in 1998 and 1999 respectively in 100 m of water, 150 kms from
Hong Kong.
The Pearl River Mouth basin also has a deepwater
extension and CNOOC has designated 12 blocks available for foreign
companies in up to 2,000 m of water.
The Yinggehai basin (part of Nanhai West) in southwest
China, south of Hainan Island is a gas-prone area with very small
volumes of associated liquids. BP’s Yacheng 13-1 giant gas field,
discovered by Arco in 1983 and located 100 kms south of Hainan Island in
100 m of water, began production in 1995 by pipeline to Hong Kong, via a
775 km pipeline, and to Hainan via a shorter line.
The 85 Bcm Dongfang 1-1 gas field, due west of Hainan
island in 75 m of water, and the second largest offshore gas field after
Yacheng, is being developed by CNOOC in two phases. The first phase
consists of two production platforms, two onshore gas terminals, a 116
km pipeline and 12 development wells. It came onstream in 2003.
The Beibu Gulf (also part of Nanhai West) lies in the
South China Sea between Hainan Island and the mainland. It is underlain
by the Beibuwan basin. The Weizhou 10-3 field in this area was put into
trial production 1986, however this and other accumulations found in the
region are very small.
|
Back to ASIA-PACIFIC