On the occasion of its 40-year anniversary, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced the signing of Strategic Cooperation Agreements with nine international oil majors for oil and gas exploration in the Pearl River Mouth Basin, offshore China.
The nine oil companies include US-based Chevron and ConocoPhillips, Norwegian Equinor, Canadian Husky, Kuwait’s KUFPEC, Australian Roc Oil, British Shell, South Korea’s SK Innovation and French Total.
According to the agreements, the Strategic Cooperation Areas are located in the Pearl River Mouth Basin offshore China, including Area A and Area B (existing mining license areas and the contract areas are not included).
Area A is approximately 15,300 square kilometers, with a water depth of 80-120 meters and only open for the deep layers below Enping Formation of Paleogene. Area B is approximately 48,700 square kilometers, with a water depth of 500-3,000 meters and open for all the layers.
The agreements will facilitate the establishment of a long term and stable cooperation and share the development opportunities to a certain extent in the Strategic Cooperation Areas, creating conditions for the final signing of contracts,
…CNOOC stated.
This move is aligned with increased efforts by China’s state oil and gas producers PetroChina, Sinopec Corp and CNOOC to boost domestic oil and gas drilling, after a call by President Xi Jinping to boost domestic energy supply security.
In the recently published 2019 upstream and corporate outlook reports, Wood Mackenzie senior vice president Tom Ellacott highlighted that ‘oil and gas companies can cope with whatever’s thrown at them in 2019’:
Portfolios are set to weather low prices, and the recent slide in prices justifies the sector’s conservative mindset. In our view the commitment to capital discipline will not budge entering the new year.
