Production on China National Offshore Oil Corp. Ltd’s (CNOOC) oil field in the South China Sea has started. XJ 23-1 is on Block XJ04 in the Pearl River Mouth basin, 19km east of CNOOC’s XJ23-4 oil field. Its development facilities contain one platform, one floating production, storage, and offloading vessel and 15 producing wells. Currently, the field is producing 31,000bpd of oil from 10 wells. The other wells will start production in succession. Peak production of XJ23-1 is expected to hit 40,000 bpd. Last October, China’s Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry completed construction of a 100,000dwt FPSO vessel, to be deployed at XJ23-1, which can process up to 16.35 million bbl of crude. CNOOC commissioned the Qingdao Beihai shipyard to build the FPSO vessel in October 2005. CNOOC Ltd. is operator and holds 100% interest in XJ23-1, which was discovered in 2003.
