Though the international market was hard hit by unforeseen challenges in recent months, CNOOC Limited said it was still able to achieve “better-than-expected” results at half year. It credited this performance to management’s strategic investments in key assets based in China as well as those in overseas territories like the Stabroek Block in Guyana.
Specifically, CNOOC Chairman, Wang Dongjin, said in his company’s 2022 Interim Report that for the first six months, management carefully deployed oil and gas exploration workloads, adding that its resource base for sustainable development was further fortified.
Expounding, he said in offshore China, two middle-to-large-sized discoveries, namely Bozhong 26-6 and Bozhong 19-2, were made and confirmed. In overseas assets, he recalled that five new discoveries were made in Stabroek Block in Guyana. Two additional discoveries at Stabroek have since been made. The recoverable resources of the block have thus far reached approximately 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
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In addition, the official said new breakthrough was made in offshore shale oil exploration, and the fracturing experiment in onshore deep coalbed methane layers was successfully completed.
He said, “We dedicated great efforts to increase oil and gas production, and our net production hit a record high for the same period, reaching 304.8 million BOE, representing a year-on-year increase of 9.6%. The natural decline rate of domestic producing oilfields was also brought under effective control.”
In terms of committed investments for 2022, financial statements show that CNOOC set aside RMB$2.2 billion for Liza Phase 2 operations and up to June, only RMB$1.1 billion was utilised.
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For Payara RMB$5.2 billion was budgeted and only RMB$1.1 billion was utilised at half year. The company said all funds are to be expended by 2026 latest. It therefore means that for 2022, CNOOC committed roughly RMB$7.4 billion or US$1 billion for those two projects.
CNOOC remains one of the largest oil and gas exploration and production companies in the world. As of the end of 2021, the company had net proven reserves of approximately 5.73 billion BOE.
CNOOC owns a 25% stake in the Stabroek Block, where two projects are producing about 360,000 barrels of crude per day.
