China's Jidong Nanpu oil field in Bohai Bay holds larger reserves than early announcements indicated, PetroChina executives said in May 2007.
PetroChina president Jiang Jiemin put the field's density at five million tonnes per square kilometre and described the previously disclosed one-billion-tonne (7.35 billion barrel) figure as provisional, with continued drilling expected to raise it. Jidong's first general manager added that less than half of Bohai Bay's hydrocarbon potential had yet been reached. A company spokesman credited advances in extraction technology for unlocking deposits that had gone undetected during decades of earlier surveys.
CNPC, PetroChina's parent, had already projected annual output from the Nanpu block of 10 million tonnes by 2012. The Jidong Nanpu field is the largest discovery in China in roughly 40 years.
The news arrives as Chinese crude demand climbs steeply. Consumption rose 7.1 percent in 2006 to more than 320 million tonnes, with nearly 45 percent sourced from imports. April 2007 crude imports set a monthly record at 14.8 million tonnes, up 23 percent year-on-year, while cumulative imports through April reached 54.5 million tonnes, 10.8 percent above the prior-year pace.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in May 2007, in its own words.