South Korea’s SK Innovation Co. has successfully explored crude oil at a Chinese sector in South China Sea. According to the company on Wednesday, it discovered a 34.8-meter-thick effective oil pool at the Block 17/03 located 2,014 meters deep the Pearl River Mouth Basin last December and successfully drilled up to 3,750 barrels of crude oil a day just with the natural pressure from the geological strata.
SK owns 80 percent of the block, while the rest is owned by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). SK says it plans to conduct an evaluation to further verify the oil reserves and commercial value of the block and that if the value if verified, the company plans to quickly set up its oil production platform in South China Sea.
SK has been producing conventional oil in Peru, Vietnam and the Middle East since its acquisition of interests in Karimun Block, Indonesia in 1983. The South Korean oil refiner has also been producing shale oil and gas equivalent to 2,500 barrels of oil per day since it took over two blocks in the United States in 2014. Currently, the company is producing a daily average of 55,000 barrels of oil equivalent in 13 blocks in nine countries.
Dong-Il Seo dong@donga.com