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PetroChina Finds New
Oilfield in Northwest
From: Mavlan Yasin <MYasin@UniversalCare.com
PetroChina Finds New Oilfield in Northwest /BEIJING, Nov 2, 2000 -- Reuters
PetroChina has found an oilfield in the northwestern region of Xinjiang with
possible crude reserves of 60 million tons, a company official said on Thursday.
The oilfield, in the southern part of the Junggar Basin, covered an area of 10
square kilometers, the official said. One well in the area, Ka-6, was producing
around 104 barrels per day (bpd) and 10,000 cubic meters of natural gas a day,
the official said. The oil bearing structure in the area was 30 meter
thick, the official said. "This is fairly large discovery in Junggar
Basin, where oil exploration has been going on for 50 years," the
official said. The oilfield was only around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from
PetroChina's Dushanzi Petrochemical Co., which has a refining
capacity of six million tons a year. Dushanzi has just got state
approval to increase its annual ethylene production capacity to 220,000
tons by 2003 from 140,000 tons at present, the official said. PetroChina
to Offer More Oil, Gas Blocks in 2001 SINGAPORE, Nov 2, 2000 -- Reuters
China's largest oil and gas producer PetroChina plans to offer at least 11
onshore concession blocks next year, Beijing-based industry sources said
on Thursday. The concessions included three oil exploration blocks in
northwest Xinjiang's Tarim Basin and eight oil and gas exploration and
development blocks in northwest Ordos Basin, they said. The company
was also considering blocks in Xinjiang's Junggar Basin, PetroChina's top
oil and gas producing area in western China, sources said. PetroChina is
studying the blocks, which are subject for state approval. The new offers would
be part of PetroChina's latest drive to open up the land-based upstream sector
to foreign investors. "We will be stepping up onshore concession
offers next year," a senior
PetroChina official told Reuters earlier this week. "We are
considering more liberal policies such as exemption to income tax
for the initial two years and a lower tax rate for the next three years
after the fields are in operation." A dismal success rate for foreign
companies in the hunt for onshore
resources and a historic tendency to keep the most prospective areas for itself
has dampened foreign interest since China opened its onshore sector in 1985.
PetroChina has proven reserves of 855.2 million barrels of oil equivalent in
Junggar, 375 million barrels in Ordos and 276.3 million barrels in Tarim as of
September 30, 1999, a company official told Reuters. In September,
the company put on sale 15 oil and gas blocks in northeast China's
Bohai Bay Basin. Analysts said gas blocks in Ordos Basin in the Inner Mongolia
and Shaanxi provinces might garner special attention as China plans to build a
4,167 kilometer gas trunkline through the area in the next three to five years.
The Chinese government plans to ship gas from the remote and poor west to
the affluent east to jump start economies in the hinterland, which are
lagging. Royal Dutch/Shell has entered a USD 3 billion project with
PetroChina to jointly develop and market natural gas from the Changbei
field in the Ordos Basin. The Ordos and Tarim basins were some of
the biggest producing areas in western China in 1999, each churning out
6.42 million tons and 4.18 million tons of crude respectively, Chinese
official media reported. The Junggar and Ordos basins registered gas of
1.5 billion and 1.207 billion cubic meters each in 1999.
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