Asia - AFP China says Bohai Bay Basin may hold 20.5 billion tons of oil

Asia - AFP ^ | Dec 24, 2004 | AFP

[hedgetrimmer]

Exploration teams believe the Bohai Bay Basin in northern China may hold 20.5 billion tons of oil reserves, enough to sustain the country's energy needs for a "considerable" time, state press said.

So far, nine billion tons have been proven with the remaining 11.5 billion still needing to be further explored, the China Daily reported.

Bohai is one of China's major oil-producing centers and the find comes as China is trying to build up its domestic oil reserves as part of measures to cope with rising global oil prices and possible fuel shortages.

Jin Zhijun, president of the Exploration and Production Research Institute of oil giant Sinopec, said the finding "could potentially sustain the country's energy needs for a considerably long time".

China, the world's second-largest oil consumer after the United States, has been a net importer of oil since 1993 as domestic supplies have failed to keep up with soaring demand.

[hedgetrimmer]

"According to Jin, there are plenty of potential domestic reserves still to be found, identifying the East China Sea, South China Sea and Yellow Sea as containing rich resources"

If this is true, then one can only surmise China's efforts to lock in oil contracts with the top four suppliers to the US can only be seen as economic agression against the USA.

[hedgetrimmer]

FYI

[Zeppelin]

Scary. We need to pipe our way through the earth and drain their resources!

But seriously, thats scary.

[endthematrix]

"some 9 billion tons of oil have already been confirmed in the basin. The remaining 11.5 billion tons need to be further explored to be confirmed"

I think old school ChiCommies still want to be 100% self sufficient in everything. A party officer might have said, "find it here, in China!" Even the 9 billion is an estimate with probabilities. I'm sure its there, as vast as China is. There is untapped resources of huge proportions.

[RightWhale]

Prudhoe Bay was 20 billion barrels. We burn 10 million barrels a day, so that was a six year supply. Assuming there are seven barrels in a ton, then China has proved up 70 billion barrels, which would be a twenty year supply for them if they burn as much as we do.

These are Rightwhale figures, which may be ballpark.

[hedgetrimmer]

Actually, with about a population of about a billion, they could potentially burn a lot more oil than we do a day.