China signaled its openness for business with a raft of deals that would give oil majors, including Royal Dutch Shell PLC, new opportunities to develop offshore fields in partnership with the nation’s biggest maritime explorer.
China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC, 中國海洋石油) said in Beijing yesterday that it had inked oil and gas accords with nine firms.
The signing ceremony followed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) address to Chinese Communist Party cadres marking 40 years of reform and broadly underlining the nation’s commitment to global trade.
Photo: Bloomberg
The agreements cover 64,000m2 in the Pearl River basin, to a depth of up to 3,000m.
In addition to the Netherlands-based Shell, France’s Total SA and US-based Chevron Corp were also awarded parcels.
All three majors hold existing production sharing contracts (PSCs) with CNOOC.
The other firms involved are: ConocoPhillips, Equinor ASA, Husky Energy Inc, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co, Roc Oil Co and SK Innovation Co.
“It’s no coincidence that CNOOC made the statement a couple of hours after President Xi’s speech,” said Tian Miao (田苗), a Beijing-based analyst at Everbright Sun Hung Kai Co (大新鴻基). “It’s only reasonable to assume this [as] one of the real actions China is taking to show the world it’s willing to open businesses to the whole world.”
CNOOC has signed more than 200 PSCs since its inception in the early 1980s, even as it has increasingly relied on its own resources to tap deep-water projects in Chinese waters — most recently the giant Lingshui 17-2 gas field in the South China Sea.
CNOOC has promised to increase spending and raise output, heeding Xi’s call for enhanced energy security as imports grow and the nation contends with the US over trade.
“The agreements will facilitate the establishment of a long-term and stable cooperation and share the development opportunities to a certain extent in the strategic cooperation areas, creating conditions for the final signing of contracts,” CNOOC’s listed unit said in a statement.
The smallest of China’s big three oil and gas firms, CNOOC is its favored vehicle for international cooperation and holds the vast majority of reserves in Chinese waters.
About three-quarters of its offshore production is conducted independently, with the remainder tied up in PSCs, including deals signed in July with Australia’s Roc Oil and Smart Oil LLC of the US.
“From a business perspective, inviting international oil companies to join domestic offshore exploration helps reduce investment risks and bring in more offshore drilling expertise,” Tian said. “It definitely helps CNOOC’s promise to quickly raise oil and gas output from domestic fields.”
Xi’s earlier address in the capital disappointed those hoping for specific policies to counter a slowing economy and show the nation’s intent to free up its markets. Instead, he focused more on the accomplishments of the Chinese Communist Party.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last