China petro giant to increase production and investment
Cnooc, China’s largest offshore oil and gas company, is planning to increase both production and oil and gas investment in 2009. The company announced a net profit of $6.5 billion in 2008, making it the sole firm from China’s “big three” petroleum companies to end 2008 in the black.
The current lower price of oil is not affecting Cnooc’s deepwater projects, says the company. It plans to invest $44 billion in oil and gas projects targeting the Guangdong province over the next five years. The focus of this investment is deepwater exploration. This capital is expected to come from two Hong Kong listed branches of Cnooc, CNOOC and Chinan Oilfield Services, along with foreign investors.
Fu Chengyu, the chairman of Cnooc, admits there’s no way to predict when the price of a barrel of oil will rebound, but he adds Cnooc is taking the long view and expecting China’s energy demand to remain high. Cnooc expects to increase both crude oil and natural gas production in 2009 by up to 19 percent. The company produced 194 barrels of oil equivalent last year and hopes to produce 225 million barrels this year. It also expects its oil and gas production to grow up to 10 percent between 2011 and 2015.
Cnooc is looking to increase capital expenditures by 19 percent as well with an investment of $6.76 billion. The company plans on starting 10 new projects in 2009. Current key investments include Nigeria’s Akpo field with a 45 percent stake, and Indonesia’s Tangguh liquefied natural gas play with a 13.9 percent stake.
In administrative news, Cnooc announced its president, Zhou Shouwei, has been replaced by the chief financial officer, Yang Hua.
Sources for this post include the Wall Street Journal and Reuters.
Published Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 6:40 am and filed under Industry News.