China National Offshore Oil Corporation, the state-owned oil giant, announced on Friday the discovery of China’s first major deep-water oil field in the Pearl River Delta region of the South China Sea. The field, named Kaiping Nan, holds an estimated crude oil reserve of about 102 million tonnes. It sits within the Kaiping trough, roughly 300 kilometers from the southeastern city of Shenzhen, with an average water depth exceeding 500 meters and a maximum depth approaching 4,831 meters, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
A geologist from CNOOC’s Shenzhen subsidiary, Liu Jun, told the state news agency that the area features geologically complex conditions marked by numerous faults. He noted that a fresh interpretation of seismic data was necessary to identify zones with the greatest potential for hydrocarbon accumulation. Since 2023, CNOOC has drilled multiple exploratory wells in the Kaiping Nan area, four of which yielded high-rate industrial oil flows, Liu added. Zhou Xinhuai, CNOOC’s chief executive and president, emphasized that China’s deep-water regions have been sparsely explored to date but are pivotal for the country’s future reserve growth and oil and gas production expansion.
In 2023, China achieved a record in oil and gas production, driven by heightened exploration and exploitation efforts by domestic companies, the country’s National Energy Administration reported in January. Crude oil production reached 208 million tonnes, up about 3 million tonnes, or roughly 1.46 percent, from 2022. The administration also highlighted a notable increase in offshore marine oil production, which rose to 62 million tonnes. [Xinhua]