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Oil Company to Be Listed Abroad
CNOOC Limited, a company based in Hong Kong and majority owned by China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), is striding smoothly forward towards its goal of being listed on foreign stock exchanges.
CNOOC Limited Senior Vice-President Yang Hua said the company has been laying down a sound foundation for its planned public offering early next year, thanks to a series of recent gains, including a more than 200 per cent increase in its semi-annual net profit, US$460 million of private cash and a more open operation.
CNOOC Limited has taken full advantage of high oil prices to increase production in the first six months this year. Its daily average output reached 249,400 barrels of oil, a 25.1 per cent increase from the first half of 1999.
The firm's total production in the January-June period was 45.4 million barrels of oil, 54 per cent of the targeted annual production. Net profit scored 4.9 billion yuan (US$593.8 million), up 204.8 per cent on a year-on-year basis.
In addition, CNOOC Limited has twice successfully sold shares in the company in recent months.
In April, the company sold the first lot, bringing in a total of US$210 million. Investors included the GIC (the Government of Singapore Investment Corp) Special Investment Pte Ltd and the American International Group Asian Infrastructure Fund.
In July, more shares were sold for an additional US$250 million, made up of US$200 million from Hutchison Whampoa and Hongkong Electric, and US$50 million from a consortium consisting of CDC Capital Partners and General Enterprise Management Services Limited.
The addition of two new board members, Meng Ann Lim, senior vice president of GIC Infrastructure Pte Ltd, and Tso Kai-sum, group managing director of Hongkong Electric, has brought international management experience to the company and increased transparency and diversity in CNOOC Limited.
CNOOC Limited has promoted its corporate website (www.cnoocltd.com) since February and published frequent press releases and news letters via the Web site.
The company also held press conferences in February and July , Yang said.
CNOOC Limited also set up a department to help investors, received many visiting investors, and presented several conferences to investors in London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing.
The company's annual production growth is expected to average 20 per cent over the next five years. The forecasted annual production for 2005 is 180-200 million barrels of oil.
To sustain rapid growth and increase profitability, CNOOC Limited will expand into related energy businesses, as well as focusing on its core exploration and production undertakings.
CNOOC Limited wants to transform itself from an exploration and production company to an energy company. With this long-term strategy, it will continue to explore natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets in coastal China. This includes offshore gas, LNG, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) retailing opportunities.
CNOOC Limited was formed in October last year through the reorganization of its parent company - China National Offshore Oil Corp. With reserves of 1.8 billion barrels of oil by the end of 1999, CNOOC Limited is one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies in the world.
Through its parent company, CNOOC Limited has the right to enter into production sharing contracts with international oil and gas companies to conduct joint exploration and production activities in China's offshore waters. Under these contracts, the company has the right to acquire up to a 51 per cent participating interest in any oil or gas field discovered in the contract area after its foreign partner has undertaken exploration and discovered commercial quantities of oil or gas.
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