Kerr-McGee Corp., one of the world’s biggest independent oil and gas exploration companies, announced Tuesday its eighth discovery in East China’s Bohai Bay area, a “prolific oil basin” as the company describes.

The discovery was made in the CFD 14-5-1 well in block 09/18, which was located in 23 meters of water and was drilled to a total of 4,260 meters, the company said.

The discovery expanded Kerr-McGee’s success in the Bohai Bay, where the company operated four blocks covering more than 688,00 hectares, said Dave Hager, senior vice president of oil and gas exploration and production.

Kerr-McGee would submit an appraisal plan for the CFD 14-5 area to the Chinese Government, and the first appraisal well was expected to spud by the year end, the company said.

“The Bohai Bay area continues to add value as a core exploration and production play for Kerr-McGee. Two fields are already on production and development planning is also under way for five of our Bohai Bay discoveries,” Hager said.

This discovery is located approximately 32 kilometers southwest of Kerr-McGee’s CFD 11-1 and CFD 11-2 development, which began production in July.

Kerr-McGee, as the operator, has a 40.09 percent stake in the CFD11-1 and CFD11-2 fields, with China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) holding 51 percent and Ultra Petroleum of the United States taking the rest.

The two fields are expected to produce 15,000 to 20,000 barrels of oil a day by the end of this year.

In another development, Russian pipeline giant Transneft said Tuesday it planned to export to China the oil it got from struggling oil major Yukos as barter payment for shipping fees.

“We are thinking about delivering this oil to China and are currently looking for a trading company that would agree to do so,” said Semyon Vainshtok, president of Transneft.

Yukos had agreed to give Transneft around 400,000 ton of oil a month to pay for its shipping fees, Vainshtok said.

Yukos, whose bank accounts are frozen, said in September it would cut supplies to China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) from October and undersupply a total of 1 million tons by the end of 2004.

(Xinhua News Agency October 28, 2004)