The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced Thursday that it has discovered a 100-million-ton oil field in the Yellow Sea capable of yielding up to 569 barrels of oil per day..
“The successful discovery of the Kenli 10-2 oil field marked the breakthrough in discovery of lithological oilfield with reserve of 100 million tons in the shallow depression zone of the Bohai oilfields, demonstrated the broad prospects for exploration of lithological structures in the Bohai, and has great significance as a guide for exploration in similar basins,” Xu Changgui, the company’s exploration department chief, said in a statement.
The oil field is located in the southern part of the Bohai Bay in the Yellow Sea, about 245 kilometers (150 miles) away from the city of Tianjin. The oil deposit lies at the depth of about 15 meters.
A single well in this field could produce 569 barrels of crude oil per day, according to the company estimates.
In mid-September, China’s state-run energy giant Sinopec forecast that oil consumption in the country will peak around 2026, at least four years ahead of the global rate. It is expected that the highest value will be about 800 million tons, or about 16 million barrels per day, and then consumption will start to go down.
