Providence Resources - China Visit - Senior executives at the Irish...

Senior executives at the Irish exploration firm Providence Resources were in Asia last week holding discussions with potential partners to help it develop its Barryroe oil find.

China has a number of major oil industry players who are seeking opportunities to become involved in overseas projects. Providence recently announced that the Barryroe oil field in the Celtic Sea could contain between 1 billion and 1.6 billion barrels of oil.

The results of the drilling programme at Barryroe are already well ahead of what was expected and this has generated a lot of international media interest. Providence has said previously that it is seeking partners to develop what would be Ireland's first commercial oil field.

"The size and scale of some of the Chinese companies is colossal," said one source.

China's largest oil company, PetroChina, produces more than four million barrels of oil per day and is the fifth-biggest oil company in the world, according to Forbes. Its chairman said in March that the company was aiming to have half of its oil and gas output coming from overseas by the end of the decade.
Another Chinese oil giant, Sinopec Group, has more than 600 billion yuan (€75 billion) of overseas assets in 55 countries, while another company, CNOOC, has a production target of 330 to 340 million barrels of oil equivalent for the year.