CNPC holds fire on Liaoning oil field

CNPC (Hong Kong) has won approval from mainland authorities to take part in a Liaoning oil field project, Guo Zeguang, vice-president of controlling shareholder CNPC Hong Kong (Holdings) said.

However, market conditions were not yet favourable for the asset injection, he said.

The Liaoning project was expected to become an important source of earnings for CNPC in addition to the existing Xinjiang project, in which CNPC took a 54 per cent interest last year.

Its oil reserves could be enough for 20 to 25 years of development, and its fixed assets are estimated to be worth more than $1 billion.

Mr Guo said the listed arm was looking into other potential deals and that the next project might come from outside the mainland, due to limited reserves there.

He also said the company's plans to launch a share placement would not be negatively affected by the market slump.

CNPC (Hong Kong) is the Hong Kong-listed vehicle of China National Petroleum Corp, which has a monopoly over mainland on-shore oil exploration and production.