CURRENT STATUS, PROBLEMS AND FUTURE STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESSION OF OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS PRODUCTION IN CHINA

The recent achievements in exploration and development demonstrate that offshore petroleum has become an important reserve and major production successors in China. The Bohai Bay basin has succeeded the eastern South China Sea as the best offshore petroleum development prospects, and a major contributor to oil production in China. The oil production may remain stable in the future in the western South China Sea due to the breakthrough in the target layers and new frontiers. Furthermore, the technological development has provided tools for recovering residual gas in offshore China as potential gas resources, and its production ratio is increasing rapidly. It has become a significant complement of gas production in China. However, there are still questions to be considered to meet the challenges from the increasing demand. In the Bohai Bay Basin, investment and synthetic research must be reinforced in petroleum exploration, so as to find new reserves. In the Eastern South China Sea, further work is required to find new reserve in the old fields and make evaluation of newly discovered oil and gas structures to find effective successors of production. The petroleum exploration on East China Sea continental shelf should be strengthened so as to find successive area for the future. At the same time, the investigation in the Yellow Sea should be restarted as a strategic choice so as to prepare for a long tern exploration. On the South China Sea continental slope and in the deepwater area, early planning of exploration should be carried out as soon as possible.