China certifies biggest oil discovery in Jidong Nanpu

China’s Ministry of Land and Resources has certified the proven oil reserves in the latest section of the Jidong Nanpu oil field in Bohai Bay at 445 million tons of oil.

This brings the total reserves for Jidong Nanpu at 1.18 billion tons of oil equivalent in oil and gas reserves.

The China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) had originally announced the discovery to the largest in China for 30 years, but previously presented an estimate of reserves at 405 million tons of oil reserves.

The field is being developed by PetroChina, a subsidiary of CNPC.

While not necessarily huge by international standards, it does represent a major step forward for a country and government that has increasingly found it difficult to develop energy supplies independent of the energy war conducted between the USA and Russia.

So far China has faced hostility from the US Congress when attempting to buy into American oil companies, and so far has found itself relying on marginal contracts with countries such as Sudan.

In the meantime, China has also been slowly weaning itself away from potential Russian influence, setting up pipelines away from direct control by Moscow.

With a continued increase in energy consumption required to fuel its booming economy, the development of Jidong Nanpu will allow the Chinese government some additional room in its objective in securing safe energy supplies.