China’s Discovery of Major Gas Reserves in the Bohai Sea: How Will it Affect LNG Gas Imports from the US?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, February 27, 2019
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The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has confirmed  “the discovery of a high-quality and high-yield oil” in the Bohai Sea with   proven reserves of natural gas exceeding 100 billion cubic meters. (see RT News)

“The flow has been discovered in CNOOC’s Bozhong 19-6 gas field, China Central Televison reported. It is the largest oil and gas discovery in the Bohai Bay Basin in the past 50 years, and could be used by millions of city dwellers for hundreds of years, reports the China Daily.

According to Liu Baosheng, a project manager with the CNOOC, 11 wells have found oil and gas in the Bohai Sea, and a 12th well has reached 4,700 meters below the seabed.

Although the Bohai Oilfield is the second-largest crude oil production base in China, its discovered reserves in the past 50 years were mainly crude oil. Until now, few natural gas discoveries have been made due to the complex’s geological structure.”. (RT News quoting China Daily)

 

How will this major discovery in the Bohai sea affect the energy market, including the configuration of oil and gas pipeline corridors?

The CNOOC has confirmed that the Bohai natural gas would be directly transported to major Chinese urban areas through existing pipelines.

According to the Global Times: “Most domestic natural gas bases are located in western China, while 70 percent of the natural resource is used in the central and eastern part of the country”.

The Bohai discovery will reduce North Eastern China’s dependence on gas from Western China. It will also have an impact on the import of LNG via maritime routes.

The Bohai deposits are close to major urban areas including Beijing and Tianjin. Dalian is a strategic port in North Eastern China.

 

China is the world’s largest importer of natural gas and the second-largest of liquified natural gas (LNG).

In January, prior to the CNOOC announcement regarding the Bohai discovery, China announced plans to quadruple its LNG imports.

As of November [2018], Chinese LNG imports are up by a whopping 43 percent year-over-year. Total gas imports have grown by nearly one-third in the same period. (Forbes)

Coupled with the US-China trade war, will the Bohai  discovery have an impact on China’s import of LNG from the US?

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Articles by: Prof Michel Chossudovsky

About the author:

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research. He has undertaken field research in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality. He has also undertaken research in Health Economics (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), UNFPA, CIDA, WHO, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983) He is the author of 13 books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015). He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

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