China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is planning to boost its 2022 oil and gas production by 10 percent compared to last year’s goal, as it plans 13 new projects to come on stream and drill 360 exploration wells this year, and continue raising output to records this decade.
CNOOC set its production target at 600 million to 610 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) for 2022, up from the 2021 target of 545-555 million boe, it said in the strategy and operations guidance for this year.
In 2022, CNOOC expects China to account for 69 percent of its net production and projects outside China to make up the remaining 31 percent.
Last year, the company exceeded its production target and expects its oil and gas production to have been around 570 million boe. CNOOC plans to continue raising its production in the following years, to reach up to 690 million boe in 2024.
It sees its oil production in China to peak by 2030, and natural gas output by 2035.
CNOOC plans to bring online 13 new projects, of which seven offshore China, three onshore China, and three projects overseas in which it has share participation. These are Liza Phase 2 offshore Guyana, Mero Phase 1 offshore Brazil, and the 3M (MDA, MBH, MAC) project in Indonesia.
The firm expects to drill 227 offshore exploration wells and 132 onshore unconventional exploration wells this year.
In its exploration strategy this year, CNOOC will focus on targeting both oil and gas in China, weighting more on gas exploration, including unconventional gas. CNOOC will focus on gas fields exploration in the South China Sea and develop the Lingshui 17-2 large deepwater gas field, as well as adding onshore unconventional gas resources, it said.
In August 2021, CNOOC launched full-capacity production at its first independently developed deepwater oil project, which is located in the eastern section of the South China Sea. The Liuhua 16-2 oilfield cluster had started production in September 2020.
