By DAVID WINNING
December 21, 2007
BEIJING — China National Petroleum Corp. aims to let more foreign companies develop domestic oil fields, building on the success of major onshore gas deals, as it grapples with stagnant production, a senior executive said.
The oil company, parent of PetroChina Co. and China’s largest by assets, hopes foreign firms can bridge its knowledge-gap in enhanced recovery, especially the injection of carbon dioxide into reservoirs to boost well pressure.
China has used polymer-and-steam injection at fields in the northeast to boost recovery, but industry insiders say carbon-dioxide injection leads to higher recovery rates.
China’s oil needs are also pushing the company to open more frontier areas like the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang province, where the terrain is harsh, and give foreign companies access to leases containing unconventional reserves like oil shale and heavy oil.
The strategy follows production-sharing contracts with Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell PLC that raised natural-gas output at blocks in the country’s northwestern Ordos Basin.
This week, China National Petroleum signed a 30-year contract with Chevron Corp. to share output from a high-sulfur gas block in southwestern China’s Sichuan province.
“We are thinking of oil after the gas deals…Our priority [for foreign partnerships] is to raise local oil-recovery rates,” Yan Cunzhang, general manager of the foreign cooperation unit under CNPC, said.
China’s growth in crude-oil production is failing to keep pace with rising domestic consumption. The International Energy Agency expects output to peak at 3.9 million barrels a day in 2012, even though this year’s Nanpu Jidong oil-field discovery is likely to come onstream at that time.
The IEA says all of China’s 11 biggest oil fields, except for Tahe in Xinjiang, are past their production peak. The 11 fields, from 492 in production nationally, contribute nearly half of China’s domestic output.
Stagnating production is driving China’s dependence on oil imports, which are likely to break through the 50% threshold soon. State oil companies have responded by acquiring fields overseas and bringing equity oil back home, although experts aren’t sure this is an effective strategy.
The company has a set a goal of 108.65 million metric tons, equivalent to 2.18 million barrels per day, up 1% year-to-year, for its crude-oil output in China and overseas next year, an executive said earlier this week.
Foreign companies have been pushing to work toward boosting oil recovery at China’s aging oil fields, like the flagship Daqing field in northeastern Heilongjiang province, where output is declining at a 3% to 5% annual rate.
Mr. Yan said Norway’s StatoilHydro ASA is exchanging technology with the development of an oil field in Jilin province, also in the northeast.
Industry insiders say StatoilHydro is examining the possibility of using carbon-dioxide injection to raise output at the Fuyu oil field, which the Chinese started to develop in 1959.
–Renya Peng contributed to this article.
Write to David Winning at [email protected]
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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