CNOOC's drilling platform on China's Bohai Sea Photo:VCG

The annual crude oil output of China's Bohai Sea oil field reached 30.132 million tons in 2021, accounting for one-seventh of the country's overall annual crude oil output and becoming the country's largest oil field, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday. 

The Bohai Sea oil field is operated by China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), which started its development in 1965. 

Over 4.4 billion tons of crude oil and nearly 500 billion cubic meters of natural gas have been discovered since the field became active, with more than 493 million tons of oil and natural gas having been extracted. 

With its output in 2021, the Bohai Sea oil field continued pushing forward its seven-year work plan, which started in 2019, to build the field into an industry benchmark with high levels of exploration, construction, production and management. 

So far under the plan, four oil fields with reserves of over 100 million tons were discovered, and 85.35 million tons of oil and 9.15 billion cubic meters of natural gas were extracted by 2021. 

The annual oil and gas output of the Bohai Sea oil field in 2025 is set to surpass 40 million tons, according to the plan.

As the largest offshore oil and natural gas producer, CNOOC produced 48.64 million tons of crude oil from its domestic oil fields in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 3.23 million tons and accounting for about 80 percent of the growth in China's total oil output, according to the Xinhua report. 

Wang Dongjin, chairman of CNOOC, vowed to continue oil exploration focusing on three aspects - increasing capacity and storage of oil and gas, adopting advanced technology and conducting environmental protection projects - to bolster China's energy security and decrease reliance on foreign energy sources, thepaper.cn reported. 

Global Times