Chinese giant CNOOC has made a “large” oil discovery in the Kenil 10-2 field in Bohai bay, the company said on Thursday.
The crude was found in the southern part of the bay, which is located around 245 km from the city of Tianjin.
The discovered spot is a home to conventional heavy oil, and is estimated to contain some 100 million tonnes in reserves.
"The discovery well Kenli 10-2-4 was drilled and completed at a depth of 1,520 meters, and encountered oil pay zones with a total thickness of approximately 27 meters,” the statement from CNOOC reads.
According to the company, the ‘appraisal well’ was tested to show production of 569 barrels of oil per day.
Last week, CNOOC revealed that it had commenced oil production at the Bozhong 19-4 oil field, which is also located in the southern Bohai Sea. The company estimates that the Bozhong oil-production project could yield some 11,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The peak could be reached as early as in 2022, the oil giant believes.
CNOOC is the third largest oil producer in China after CNPC and Sinopec group. It has number of oil and gas operations in the South China Sea, but the Bohai Economic Rim remains its key producing region. The company extracts a third of its domestic production in the area, with some 477,374 barrels of oil equivalent per day, according to 2020 estimates.
In August, the national enterprise Sinopec announced a discovery of a new oil source at Tarim Basin in northwest China with an approximate capacity of 100 million tonnes.