China Perspective

Chinese oil giant learns BP spill lesson

By Wan Zhihong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-07 06:52

Tim Kimmel of the US Fish and Wildlife Service carries an pelican covered in oil from a nesting area to a waiting boat in Barataria Bay, Louisiana June 5, 2010. [Agencies]

BEIJING - China's largest offshore oil company is doing its best to ensure that its production facilities at sea do not repeat the mistakes of BP, which is still struggling to contain the disastrous Gulf of Mexico spill, a senior company official said on Sunday.

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The company has "ordered checks on every offshore oil and gas project to ensure safety," said Zhou Shouwei, vice-president of China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC). "We are making every effort to make sure this (oil spill) does not happen."

Among improvements to technological capabilities for safety enhancement, CNOOC has started upgrading the blowout preventer (BOP) system of its 3,000-m deepwater oil-drilling rig which is being built in Shanghai, Zhou said.

After modification, the BOP is expected to shut down automatically when there is an accident.

CNOOC will also upgrade its deepwater diving equipment in the next five years, which will allow divers to work at 1,500-2,000 m under water - up from the current 800-m levels - to improve operations and repair capabilities.

Urging a more comprehensive emergency response system for oil leak accidents, Zhou said CNOOC started developing its oil leak prevention systems seven years ago and has invested nearly 500 million yuan ($73 million) in the projects.

Song Lisong, general manager of the company's QHSE (Quality, health, safety and environment) department, told China Daily that seven oil leak prevention bases had been built in China's coastal areas by the end of 2008, and another seven will be ready by the end of the year.

"The global offshore oil and gas industry will see higher safety standards after the cause of the BP accident is pinpointed," said Song.

BP seemed to make headway on Sunday with its latest attempt to halt the spill - a containment dome fixed atop the well. Chief Executive Tony Hayward said the dome was capturing a large proportion of the oil leaking from the oil and he hoped it would soon be able to channel the "vast majority" of the crude to the surface.

Leaking oil is pictured at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in this frame grab taken from a BP live video feed June 5, 2010. [Agencies]

 

"The containment cap is producing around 10,000 barrels of oil a day to the surface which is being processed on the surface," Hayward told the BBC.

Scientists led by the US Geological Survey last week estimated that 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil a day was gushing into the Gulf. The oil spill has been described by the White House as the worst environmental disaster the US has faced.

Development of deepwater oil and gas, which means drilling wells deeper than 300 m under the sea, is still at an early age in China, said Zhou with CNOOC.

However, the sector is essential to China's energy security. In the past decade, 60 to 70 percent of oil discoveries with a capacity of more than 100 million tons are at sea, and among them over a half were in deepwater zones, said Zhou.

The company's deepwater oil and gas production in the South China Sea is expected to equal that of the Daqing oilfield between 2015 and 2020. Daqing, China's largest oilfield, produced around 40 million tons of crude last year.