CNOOC boosts oil output off southern coast to reach target

CNOOC, China's biggest offshore energy explorer, is expanding oil production in waters off its southern coast to reach a target missed since 2011.

CNOOC was developing new projects based on findings near the island of Weizhou, 80 nautical miles east of the border with Vietnam, said Liao Hongyue, director of the Weizhou Island Terminal. It was also enhancing current projects, he said.

"I'm positive more production should be possible out of this site once some of the programmes under way begin to produce results," Liao told reporters visiting the terminal on Tuesday.

The Weizhou rigs produce 45,700 barrels of oil equivalent a day, about 4 per cent of the Beijing-based company's global output. CNOOC produced 412 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2013, including 61 million barrels that came from Canadian unit Nexen.

Weizhou is CNOOC's biggest oil producer in the western part of the South China Sea, one of four major oil- and gas-producing areas off the shores of China. The company started a new project in the Weizhou area last year, increasing the number of operational oilfields to four.

Rigs WZ11-4, WZ11-1, WZ12-1 and WZ6-12 produce mostly crude oil. CNOOC, which started WZ6-12 last year, has announced a new finding in an area called Weizhou 12-11.