China’s Oil Production Outside China To Rival Kuwait and Mexico’s

While it is no secret that China’s state-owned oil giants, CNPC, Sinopec and CNOOC, have been on a buying spree of overseas assets over the past three or four years, not much consideration has been given outside the industry to what that means in production terms. Now the International Energy Agency (IES) has done just that. And it is eye opening.

The IEA estimates that by 2015 China will be producing 3 million barrels of oil a day outside its borders, twice what it produces today. Quite what that means is well illustrated by some comparisons. Three million barrels per day is roughly what the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and Kuwait each now produce. They are currently the world’s eighth, ninth and tenth largest producers. It would be comfortably more than Brazil, Nigeria and Venezuela’s output. They are the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth largest producers. It would also be three quarters of the way to what China already produces; China is the world’s fifth biggest oil producing nation.

This ranking hasn’t come cheap. The M&A consultancy Dealogic (via the Financial Times) says that China’s state oil companies have spent $92 billion since the start of 2009 on oil and gas assets in countries from Angola to the U.S.  There is little to suggest that number won’t pass the $100 billion mark sometime later this year as they continue to buy oil and gas in the ground, be it under water or shale, and the expertise to get it out.