CNPC produces record oil and gas in overseas fields

Overseas oil and gas output by state-owned CNPC hit record daily rates in the first two months of this year despite regional political turbulence, natural disasters and rising production costs, a company newspaper reported on March 17, 2011.

Foreign crude oil output increased 30.5 percent from a year earlier to 14.38 million tons in the January-February period, or 1.78 million barrels per day, China Petroleum Daily reported. Gas production increased 36.7 percent from a year earlier to 2.72 billion cubic metres during the same period, or 1.63 billion cubic feet per day. Oil and gas output combined amounted to 281,000 tonnes a day, or 2.04 million bpd of oil equivalent, the newspaper said.

The report did not provide details such as output by region and equity output the parent of PetroChina was entitled to under product sharing contracts. Jiang Jiemin, general manager of CNPC and chairman of PetroChina, said on March 5 that CNPC would produce a record of more than 2 million bpd of oil equivalent in overseas fields in 2011 and around half of which belongs to CNPC. CNPC's foreign production totalled 1.73 million bpd of oil equivalent in 2010.