Cnooc Makes Oil, Gas Discovery Off North China Coast

By Winnie Zhu

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Cnooc Ltd., China's biggest offshore oil explorer, made an oil and gas discovery in Bohai Bay off the country's northern coast.

The Bozhong 35-2-2 well test-flowed about 560 barrels of oil and 32,000 cubic feet of gas a day, the Beijing-based company said in a statement on its Web site.

Cnooc, the nation's third-largest oil producer, aims to more than double output at the Bohai Bay field to more than 542,000 barrel a day in five to six years as new fields come on stream, Vice President Chen Bi said last October. The field will overtake China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.'s Shengli oilfield to become China's second-largest by then, Chen said.

``Our exploration activities in the hydrocarbon-rich Bohai Bay are effective and well rewarded,'' Vice President Zhu Weilin said in the statement. The company has made three oil and gas discoveries in the area this year, Zhu said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Winnie Zhu in Shanghai at wzhu4@bloomberg.net.