China National Offshore Oil Corp, the nation's dominant offshore oil producer, said its profits surged by 88.6 per cent year-on-year in the first five months, despite the outbreak of SARS that sapped oil demand since April.

The company said in a statement that profits jumped to 6.4 billion yuan (US$773.8 million) during the period on the back of strong oil prices.

Earlier in April, CNOOC Ltd - the listed company of CNOOC that controls major production assets of the parent - said its sales price for oil had risen by 60 per cent during the first quarter with international price hikes.

CNOOC said yesterday its revenue soared by 85.6 per cent to 19.6 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion) compared with the same period last year.

Oil production reached 13.6 million cubic metres, including 2.9 million cubic metres from its production in Indonesia. The company did not provide the comparative figures.

Last year CNOOC Ltd paid nearly US$600 million for working interests of Spanish Yepsol YPF in five oil and gas fields in Indonesia.

The production of the fields had not been included in the company's book until this year.

During the period, CNOOC also produced 1.92 billion cubic metres of natural gas, one third of which comes from the Indonesian fields.

The statement said the SARS outbreak had not retarded the construction of its several projects.

The construction of the Dongfang 1-1 field, the country's second-largest offshore natural gas field, is nearing completion.

"Production from the field is expected to start ahead of schedule," said a spokesman of the company, but declined to be more precise about the timing of the gas supplies.

However, a report by financial news agency Bloomberg said the gas field is expected to come on stream in September.

(HK Edition 06/12/2003 page7)

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