Nuoxin strikes it rich with Alaskan investment

It was no coincidence that Tianjin-based investment company Nuoxin Co Ltd decided to make its first overseas energy investment in the US state of Alaska, said Yang Yubin, president of Nuoxin.

Nuoxin is now the largest shareholder in NordAq Energy Inc, the owner of Smith Bay on the western North Slope of Alaska, where an oilfield with up to 6 billion barrels of oil was recently discovered.

"Our investment in this remote inlet was Nuoxin's first energy investment abroad," said Yang.

"As a globally important oil and gas producing area, Alaska has always been the focus of energy investors around the world."

Caelus Energy, the explorer of the Smith Bay project, announced last month that it had made a new offshore oil discovery in Alaska that could become one of the largest finds in the state's history.

The company estimated that it could extract 1.8 billion to 2.4 billion barrels of crude from the oilfield, and the production level would make the field more prolific than the oilfield discovered by ExxonMobil off the South American coast of Guyana in 2015.

Based on two wells drilled earlier this year along with existing 3D seismic data, it has estimated the oil in place under the current Smith Bay leasehold at 6 billion barrels.

Despite the fact that its development will not be easy, it could produce up to 200,000 barrels per day, it said.

"It's of a size and scale that we can bring it on, such that it will have an impact on the (Trans-Alaska Pipeline System) going forward, which to me is what everybody in this state ought to be focusing on－how do we keep the pipeline up and full and running," Caelus CEO and founder Jim Musselman was quoted as saying in an interview with Petro Global News.

According to public records, Nuoxin is a comprehensive financial holding group that started with traditional financial services and expanded gradually to industrial investment, wealth management, securities, factoring and financial leasing.

It has also set up an asset management company in the United States, said the company.

NordAq, owner of the bay where the project is located, owns around 550,000 acres (222,576 hectares) of high-quality and easy-to-drill oil fields in the Cook Inlet and the North Slope, worth a total of over $100 billion.

Eyeing the huge potential in NordAq's vast resources and great value, the company signed a strategic investment and cooperation agreement with the company in July 2014, as the first step toward its energy investment abroad, said Yang.