CHINA NATIONAL PETROLEUM Corp has recently started drilling its first overseas offshore exploration well as it expands its expertise to the offshore sector.p>CHINA NATIONAL PETROLEUM Corp has recently started drilling its first overseas offshore exploration well as it expands its expertise to the offshore sector.
The nation's top oil and gas producer, which operates mostly in onshore fields, plans to finish drilling two wells in Sudan's Red Sea Basin Block 15 in six months, the company said.
Block 15 was awarded by the Sudanese government in 2005 to a consortium of five companies - CNPC, Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Berhad, or Petronas, Sudan's state oil firm Sudapet Co, Nigeria's Express Petroleum & Gas Co and Sudan's Hi-Tech Group, it said.
The two wells are located 130 km southeast of Sudan port and have a designed drilling depth of 3700 m, in water depths of 38 m and 52 m respectively. have a designed drilling depth of 3,700 m.
CNPC, parent of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina Co, also signed three oil and gas co-operation agreements with the government of Sudan in November, including memoranda of understandings on expanding a refinery in Sudan and greater co-operation in upstream oil and gas exploration there.
