China National Offshore Oil Company Limited (CNOOC Ltd.) announced Tuesday that its net profit surged 68.6 percent year on year to a historical high of 11.83 billion yuan (1.46 billion US dollars) in the first half of 2005.

The company's net production increased 14.9 percent from the same period of last year to 420,325 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day during the period.

For the period, CNOOC Ltd.'s oil and gas sales increased 54 percent to 24.73 billion yuan (3.1 billion US dollars), as a result of both production growth and a year-on-year increase of 36.4 percent in realized oil price to 43.91 US dollars per barrel.

In the first six months of 2005, CNOOC produced approximately356,826 barrels of oil and 369 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Its net production offshore China increased 20.1 percent to 383,583 BOE per day, in line with the company's full year target.

"Both the high oil price environment and well managed operation contributed to CNOOC Ltd.'s record results," said Fu Chengyu, Chairman and CEO of CNOOC Ltd.

CNOOC Ltd. made four oil and gas discoveries, three of which were discovered via independent exploration, and four appraisal successes offshore China. Two oil fields Luda 4-2 and Luda 10-1 came on stream successfully.

It's total capital expenditure was 7,636 million yuan (942.7 million US dollars) with 860 million yuan (106.2 million US dollars) spent in exploration and 6,757 million yuan (834.2 million US dollars) in development.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation, the parent company ofCNOOC Ltd., is China's largest producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas and one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies in the world.

Source: Xinhua