cosl

October 24, 2014

Norway oil piques CNOOC’s curiosity

CNOOC’s subsidiary Nexen has inquired about the price of seismic 2D data for Barents sea sectors to be licensed in 2016, says Bloomberg. The data are being sold by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.

Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv already calls this China ‘hunting for Norwegian oil’.

Another CNOOC subsidiary, COSL or China Oilfield Services (中海油服), has been operating rigs in Norway for quite some time. A $150m lawsuit their brought against Statoil, which I wrote about one year ago, was settled last June for less than half that money.

Meanwhile in Iceland, CNOOC’s partner Eykon are saying they might start acquiring seismic data next summer in the sector they own a license for, in the Jan Mayen area.

Last year I wrote a background article on CNOOC in Iceland and elsewhere. By not reading it, you’re missing out on plenty of CNOOC trivia you could enliven dinner parties with this weekend.

October 16, 2013

CNOOC, Petroleum Brunei sign JV deal

Petroleum Brunei and CNOOC subsidiary COSL have agreed to form an oil service JV during a visit by premier Li Keqiang. Chinese state media have spun the deal as a “pioneering move” towards joint resource development amid territorial disputes n the South China Sea. While the sultanate’s claims do overlap with China’s, the two countries have historically got along just fine despite the dispute, and it’s less than obvious what such a deal with Brunei means in terms of prospects for joint development with other countries in SE Asia.