Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, June 30 -- China National Offshore Oil Corp. Ltd. said its Xijiang (XJ) 23-1 oil field in the South China Sea has started production.
XJ 23-1 is on Block XJ04 in the Pearl River Mouth basin, 19 km east of CNOOC's XJ23-4 oil field. Its development facilities contain one platform, one floating production, storage, and offloading vessel and 15 producing wells.
Currently, the field is producing 31,000 b/d of oil from 10 wells. The other wells will start production in succession. Peak production of XJ23-1 is expected to hit 40,000 b/d.
Last October, China's Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry completed construction of a 100,000 dwt FPSO vessel, to be deployed at XJ23-1, which can process up to 16.35 million bbl of crude. CNOOC commissioned the Qingdao Beihai shipyard to build the FPSO vessel in October 2005.
CNOOC Ltd. is operator and holds 100% interest in XJ23-1, which was discovered in 2003.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
