China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), the country's third largest oil producer, is setting up a new energy base in Tianjin with an investment of around 15 billion yuan.

Located in Binhai Hi-tech Industry Park in northeast Tianjin, the new base will mainly focus on the development of clean and renewable energy. CNOOC will also open a research and development center there, Shanghai Securities News reported yesterday.

CNOOC also said it would further its cooperation with Tianjin on oil exploration, company Chairman Fu Chengyu was quoted by the report as saying.

The company will also set up a sales branch in Tianjin, aiming to consolidate the marketing and sales channels in the northern and northeastern parts of China, such as Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong provinces and Tianjin, Beijing municipalities.

The cooperation with CNOOC is expected to boost the development of petrochemical industry in Tianjin, according to Tianjin Mayor Huang Xingguo.

CNOOC earlier said it would invest 200 billion yuan on oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea in the next 10 or 20 years and build up a production capacity with an annual output of 50 million tons, equivalent to that of China's biggest oil field, the Daqing Oil Field.

The company on Dec 26 signed four cooperation agreements with Taiwan's CPC Corp. The agreements included a letter of intent for closer cooperation, a revised contract on joint exploration in the Tainan Basin of the Taiwan Straits and the Chaozhou Shantou Basin off the Guangdong coast, joint study on the Wuqiuyu Basin off the Fujian coast.

(China Daily December 30, 2008)