BEIJING: The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has discovered a major oilfield in the eastern South China Sea, state news agency Xinhua reported Monday, with proven reserves exceeding 100 million tonnes.
Xinhua said the Huizhou 19-6 oilfield was about 170 kilometres (100 miles) from Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province.
Test drilling has yielded a daily production of 413 barrels of crude oil and 68,000 cubic meters of natural gas, the agency said.
The US Energy Information Administration says the South China Sea is mostly underexplored because of territorial disputes, but most discovered oil and gas are in uncontested areas.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its own, but this is disputed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brunei.
