Lai See
when the oil hit the fan
It was the discovery of the decade that wasn't, and also a classic case study of accidental journalism in action.
Our petrochemicals reporter thought he had made a bad mistake in opting to take a day off on Wednesday. Picking up the papers yesterday, he read short items by a couple of wire agencies proclaiming that PetroChina was the beneficiary of '[China's] biggest oil discovery in a decade, boosting [the company's] reserves by at least a third'.
'This is a significant find, it would be almost 35 per cent of PetroChina's proved oil reserves,' gushed one analyst. 'It dispels rumours that their oilfield reserves are being depleted.'
Too bad it wasn't true.
A note by China International Capital Corp to fund managers said it all: 'This 400 million tonnes is NOT a new discovery, but the accumulated discoveries in the past three years. And it has already been included in PetroChina's reported proven reserves and 3P reserves by the end of 2003. So the 'nice surprise' is not true, and we expect to see flat or probably slight increase in PetroChina's proven oil reserves by the end of 2004.'
PetroChina shareholders aren't complaining, though. The stock shot up 4.16 per cent, compared with a 3.97 per cent gain for the H-share index and 2.49 per cent rise for the Hang Seng Index.
