Gas find revitalizes CNOOC

A recent natural gas discovery deep under the South China Sea will usher in a second growth era for CNOOC, the listed arm of China National Offshore Oil Corp, CNOOC chairman Fu Chengyu told the Wall Street Journal. Multinational oil and gas companies abandoned the area decades ago after shallower wells turned up dry, but CNOOC's Canadian partner, Husky Energy, discovered a natural-gas field in June about 240 kilometers south of Hong Kong beneath 1,500 meters of water, re-opening the area for exploration. CNOOC has the option to buy a 51% stake in the field, which Husky estimates contains four trillion to six trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural-gas reserves. CNOOC has 5.8 trillion cubic feet of booked natural-gas reserves.