Last week, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) announced the discovery of a large oilfield in the eastern part of Hebei Province. The newcomer, Nanbao Oilfield, is estimated to have one billion tons of oil reserves. Researchers say that the new discovery will, to some extent, alleviate China's energy shortage problem and might boost researchers' confidence in exploring more oilfields in future. However, the new oilfield cannot fundamentally change the unbalanced oil demand-and-supply situation. Neither can it avert China's energy saving strategy, the China Youth Daily reported.

If Nanbao Oilfield can be exploited on a large scale beginning from next year, and if it can produce 10 million tons of oil by 2012, as expected, then the discovery will certainly boost China's energy supply, said Wang Zhen, director of the School of Business Administration under the China University of Petroleum.

Furthermore, as China's exploring technologies improve, the discovery of Nanbao Oilfield might lead to the discoveries of even larger oilfields in future, he said.

"This (discovery of Nanbao Oilfield) gives us great hope," he said.

An oilfield whose oil reserve reaches one billion tons can be termed as a medium-sized or large oilfield. Professor Wang predicted that the new oilfield might rev up the development of service industry and other related industries in the nearby region. In addition, the news might also raise the share price of oil companies in the stock market. In fact, the share price of CNPC has already jumped with the news.

However, Professor Wang also pointed out that the new discovery would not fundamentally change the energy shortage problem in China.

(Chinanews.cn May 10, 2007)