In May 1999, working with the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), we made our most significant discovery to date – China’s largest offshore oilfield, the Peng Lai (PL) 19-3 field within the 1.6m acre Block 11/05 of Bohai Bay.

ConocoPhillips is operating the cooperative exploration and development of both the PL 19-3 and the PL 25-6 fields. Phase I development, which began in December 2002, averaged a gross production of approximately 25,000 BOPD. It utilized one wellhead platform, leased floating production and a storage and offloading facility (FPSO).

A development program for Phase II was officially approved by the Chinese government in January 2005. Its detailed design engineering and construction required multiple wellhead platforms, central processing facilities and a new, larger FPSO. The resulting development would be capable of processing 190,000 barrels of oil per day.

Another major project was production of the Xijiang 24-3, 30-2 and 24-1 fields, located in the South China Sea, which came onstream in 1994, 1995 and 1997 respectively. Using extended-reach drilling technology (and setting several world drilling records in the process), the gross production from the Xijiang field averaged 72,500 BOPD in 2005. As of December 31 2005, the accumulative gross production from Xijiang oilfields had reached an incredible 310 million barrels of oil.

You’ll find more information on the PL 19-3 and PL 25-6 fields in our newsroom.