Development characteristics, models and strategies for overseas oil and gas fields

The article is devoted to the research of oil and gas field development in overseas countries and regions for China’s oil companies based on about 20 years of experience and knowledge, that is why the development features, ideas, models and plan designing strategies of overseas oil and gas fields were summarized here. We learn about ten major features of overseas oil and gas field development, such as non-identity project resource, diversity of contract type, complexity of cooperation model, and so on. The overseas oil and gas field development aims at the maximization of production and benefit during the limited contract period, so the overseas oil and gas field development models are established as giving priority to production by natural energy, building large-scale production capacity, putting into production as soon as possible, realizing high oil production recovery rate, and achieving rapid payback period of investment.
The article is divided into introduction, 3 main parts, conclusion and references. From Introduction we learn about China National Petroleum Corporation’s achievements in oil-gas exploration and development in overseas countries. The authors of the article studied and summarized the particularities of overseas oil and gas field development and offered its development ideas, models and strategies specific to different contract types. The researches declared that unlike the situation in China, overseas oil-gas exploration and development has its unique characteristics, so it can’t copy the existing model in China and a model suitable for overseas characteristics must be developed by innovation.
From the article we also learn about particularities of overseas oil and gas field development, non-ownership of project resources, diversity of contract types, complexity in the ways of cooperation, timeliness of oil and gas field development, risks in project operation, economic efficiency pursued by the project and so on.
Much attention is paid to the research itself. The authors offer ideas and models on overseas oil and gas field development. A lot time is devoted to the Development scheme design strategy which is described in details.
From conclusion it becomes evident that by comparison with the situation in China, the overseas oil and gas field development has ten characteristics, namely non-ownership of project resource, diversify of contract types, complex ways of cooperation, timeliness of oil and gas field development, internationality of project operation, risks in project operation, limitation of operation window period and conditions, limitation of the scope of contract zone and data, rights & interests of project production and economic efficiency pursued by the project.
The overseas oil and gas field development main idea is “rapid development of oil producing wells, production of high-quality oil reservoir first, high oil recovery rate, rapid payback period of investment and mitigation of risks” in general.
The offered by authors development model is the following: to adopt high production by natural energy in the early period, large-scale production capacity construction, rapid production increase, high oil recovery rate to achieve rapid payback period of investment; to employ high-quality resources first while lay aside low-grade resources; to integrate exploration and development to guarantee efficient replacement of production and reserves during the contract period; to implement “secondary development” suitable for the characteristics of overseas oil and gas fields when conditions permit to maximize production and benefit during the contract period and so on.
Besides, scheme design for overseas oil and gas field development is based on contract, aiming at maximizing the benefit of the Chinese side during the contract period by optimizing development deployment to realize rapid payback period of investment.