First of all, go abroad and learn from the west.
1In August, 977, US Secretary of Energy Schlesinger met with Han Xu, deputy director of China's liaison office in the United States, and informed the United States that China's oil delegation was officially invited to visit the United States to inspect the oil industry. Considering the unusual history of Sino-US relations, it is inappropriate for us to send an official delegation. It is planned that the Ministry of Petrochemical Industry will lead a delegation to visit the United States in the name of General Manager People's Republic of China (PRC). Mainly to conduct a comprehensive investigation on the exploration, development, technical equipment, scientific research and future development trend of land and offshore oil, and draw useful experience from me. Finally, 17 people headed by Sun Jingwen, Vice Minister of Petroleum and Chemical Industry, visited the United States on 1 May 5, 1978 to 3 1. During his stay in the United States, he inspected 9 oil and gas fields, 4 scientific research units, 3 refineries, 2 engineering design contracting companies, 10 manufacturing plant and 4 drilling ships. This move caused a great sensation in the American oil industry, and soon six large companies took the initiative to visit and invited delegations to visit. On the way home, I visited Japanese shipbuilding, construction machinery manufacturing and oil refinery for 12 days. During the whole inspection activities, the delegation, based on the principle of "making foreign things serve China", extensively learned about the exploration and development technologies of oil and gas fields in the United States and Japan, and emphatically introduced the places that can be learned from the United States, so as to speed up the development of China's oil industry.
On March 26th, 1978, leaders from China, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and the State Council listened to the investigation report. The main contents are as follows: ① The historical development of American petroleum industry and the advanced technology, equipment and management at present, and the gap between us is analyzed; ② To develop China's oil industry, especially offshore oil industry, we must use foreign capital, advanced technology, equipment and management experience, and initially put forward the idea of cooperation between Chinese and American oil companies; (3) Introduce American oil refining and chemical technology and equipment to make up for our shortcomings. The Central Committee of China and the State Council decided to establish business relations directly with some American oil companies to explore and develop offshore oil in China under the principle of independence and self-reliance. The making of a major decision, like a spring thunder resounding through the sky, set off a huge wave of China's blue land opening to the outside world.
In order to explore the way of opening to the outside world and speed up the pace of progress, we adopted the method of going out and inviting in, and sent 109 delegations * * * 109 people to visit the United States and France, which are advanced in oil technology, and Britain, Brazil, Kuwait, Iran and Japan, which are experienced in using foreign capital to develop their own resources. At the same time, 23 oil companies or groups from 9 countries were invited to visit China, including Pennzoil, Exxon, Unocal, Phillips, ARCO, Mobil, Caltex, CONOCO, Natomas, Allited, Total of France, BP, Shell of Britain, Petro-Canada, Statoil, Japan Petroleum Corporation and Offshore Oil Consulting and Contracting Company. Some foreign experts and scholars, including the United Nations, were specially invited to give lectures or consult in China. These activities collected more than 20 kinds of contract and legal information from 125 countries and regions. At the same time, at home, we have had many discussions with economic and legal experts from relevant departments. In this paper, the risk contract, engineering contract, technical service and franchise system adopted in international offshore oil cooperation are deeply analyzed and studied.
Engineering contracting and technical services are two ways, that is, contracting geophysical exploration, drilling, development and construction projects in the process of oil exploration and development to foreign companies, and the resource countries themselves pay for equipment, patents and experts, and the resource countries themselves have to bear the risks.
Concession system, also known as licensing agreement or mining area and tax use fee contract, is to lease the sea area to foreign companies to do it themselves, and sovereign countries have no right to interfere. The oil produced is dominated by foreign businessmen, while resource countries only obtain their own economic benefits through taxation or oil purchase. This is an early unequal treatment of the colonies.
At present, the form of risk contract is widely used in the world, which can reflect the principle of sovereignty of resource countries and mutual benefit. The main contents are as follows.
A. foreign investors independently invest in oil and gas exploration. If the exploration fails, all risks will be borne by foreign investors, and the resource countries do not need to repay the exploration fee;
B. Because the interests of foreign businessmen are closely related to the exploration effect, it will prompt them to find oil and gas fields in the contract area as soon as possible, which is extremely beneficial for resource countries to speed up offshore oil exploration and development;
C. After finding oil and gas fields, in order to reduce investment and obtain better economic benefits, foreign businessmen always try their best to develop and construct oil and gas fields, which is beneficial for resource countries to absorb these advanced technologies;
D. Since the profit share of foreign investors is extracted from the residual output value after deducting investment and production and operation expenses from the total output value, it will encourage foreign investors to care about the investment effect, thus saving investment as much as possible.
After repeated discussion and comparison, it is agreed that it is beneficial and in line with China's national conditions to adopt risk contracting in the current situation of lack of funds, lack of management experience, low technical level and inadaptability. Finally,197965438+124 October, the State Council gave an official reply and agreed to "adopt a risky phased joint venture mode" as proposed in the Request Report of the Ministry of Petroleum on Offshore Oil Cooperation during its visit to Brazil, Britain and the United States. Specific measures are as follows.
The first stage: first, sign a geophysical exploration contract in the sea areas demarcated by the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea, and then conduct a geophysical survey at the expense of foreign investors, and then conduct a detailed seismic survey. At the same time, drill wells to grasp geological data as soon as possible and take the initiative in the next stage of negotiations.
The second stage: according to the geological data, after comprehensive evaluation, reasonably divide the blocks so as to invite tenders from foreign oil companies. After declaration, discussion and evaluation, a joint exploration and development contract will be signed on the best basis (at this time, foreign investors who have undertaken geophysical exploration will be given priority under the same conditions). According to the size of the oil field reserves, our investment ratio can range from 0 to 70%.
The foreign cooperation of China's offshore oil industry is unprecedented in China. After determining the mode of cooperation, it is imperative to have all kinds of professionals with relevant knowledge, foreign languages and international practices. In order to train these personnel, the party group of the Ministry of Petroleum Industry decided to deploy nearly 100 technical backbones from onshore oil fields, and held the first national exploration foreign affairs training course of the Ministry of Petroleum in June 1, 978 1, 654, 38+0. In less than two months, I suddenly studied economics, laws, contracts and English related to foreign cooperation, and invited Norwegian oil experts who have made achievements in developing foreign cooperation to introduce the situation and experience of international offshore oil and gas exploration. The team was later divided into two parts: nearly 30 people formed an oil and gas resources evaluation committee, and quickly moved to Hubei to learn and practice the advanced seismic stratigraphy methods at that time, and then formed four groups to evaluate the early oil and gas resources in the South Yellow Sea, Beibu Gulf, Yinggehai and Pearl River Mouth basins, and divided them into blocks for external bidding to prepare for external bidding, which was also the bid evaluation team after the bid opening; Another group of people formed six mixed committees to become the Chinese counterpart offices in the future cooperation sea area. In this way, by adopting the method of learning war in war, a basic team of foreign cooperation with certain working ability and able to complete the scheduled tasks has been formed in a short time, which ensures the normal and rapid development of China's maritime foreign cooperation.
Two. Signed eight geophysical exploration agreements to obtain basic offshore data.
If resource countries want to invite public bidding, they must publish the bidding scheme, and the formulation of this scheme must rely on the seismic and drilling data in the sea area, otherwise it will harm the economic interests of resource countries and produce unfair results.
Although China has done some earthquake and drilling work in this sea area in the previous stage, it is very sporadic and unsystematic, so it is difficult to make a correct evaluation of everything in this sea area. It is imperative to do everything possible to get the information of this sea area as soon as possible. After careful consideration and repeated comparative analysis, from 1979 to 1980, we have successively signed eight agreements with 16 oil companies in the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan to carry out geophysical exploration in the South China Sea, the South Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea, which is 46× 104km2. The agreement provides as follows.
A. All geophysical prospecting expenses shall be borne by foreign oil companies, and we will not pay any money;
B. b. 12 months later, foreign businessmen will deliver to us a set of all materials including original data, processed data and interpretation results free of charge;
C. After geophysical exploration, we undertake the obligation of public bidding, that is, divide the geophysical exploration area into several blocks, and take out some (at least two thirds) or all blocks (Yinggehai and South Yellow Sea) for bidding, and foreign companies will bid;
D. The budget and final accounts of geophysical exploration expenses shall be submitted to the Chinese side, and all the income from the sale of materials by foreign investors shall be handed over to the Chinese side except the recovery expenses. The geophysical exploration and drilling materials already available in China may also be sold to foreign investors.
In a word, geophysical exploration, as an exploration stage, is shared by the bidding company, and it will not be returned to the exploration cost, that is, it has nothing to do with the next stage of oilfield development economically. At the same time, it is strictly stipulated that only foreign companies participating in the first stage of geophysical exploration are eligible to participate in the second stage, that is, the exploration and development stage.
Subsequently, the operator company started to work from May 25th, 1979, and it took only one year and two months to collect all geophysical data from June 1 16 to July 1980. The total area of the surveyed sea area is 43× 104km2, and the seismic line1×104km, and the corresponding gravity and magnetic survey work has been completed. During this period, a total of 15 geophysical vessels (including 4 vessels hired from China) were used, and these vessels used 224 and 240 seismometers, covering 60 and 67 times. For processing and interpretation, oil companies have used 18 computer in whole or in part for tens of millions of times, and more than 700 geological and geophysical technicians from all over the world participated in the collection, processing and interpretation.
By June 1980, 1 1, all seismic data processing and interpretation were completed. 6 countries, 19 groups, 13 companies, totaling *** 12 1 person-time; The final results were reported by 1 1 country, 4 1 delegation and group and 3 1 company, with a total of ***345 person-times. For example, only the Pearl River Estuary and the South Yellow Sea submitted to us 14 batches of 8464 boxes of 80526 original data tapes, 862 12 km processing results, 123 final geological results reports and maps. In addition, British BP Company drilled two wells with geological parameters in its geophysical exploration area in the south of the South Yellow Sea. The total cost of the nine geophysical exploration areas is about 1 billion dollars, all of which are paid by foreign investors.
During this period, according to the agreement, we also sent more than 80 professional technicians in petroleum geology and geophysics to the computer processing centers of oil companies such as the United States, Britain and France to participate in the work and supervision. After nearly a year, they learned relevant advanced technology and management experience in advanced professional companies in the west, which laid the foundation for the following public bidding.
According to the analysis of the final geological results report submitted by foreign investors, the oil and gas prospects in the Pearl River Estuary, Yinggehai and the southern part of the South Yellow Sea are relatively good, all of which have the advantages of thick sedimentary rocks, many structural traps and good oil and gas formation conditions. According to statistics, * * * found 290 favorable oil-bearing structures, including Pearl River Mouth Basin 169, South Yellow Sea 74 and Yinggehai 47. There are 3 large structures 13 with a structural area above 100km2, 37 large structures with a structural area of 50 ~ 100 km2, and the largest structure is Panyu 16- 1 with an area of 407km2.
The early four resource evaluation teams in China made full use of the advanced geophysical data provided by foreign companies and closely combined with the geological conditions in China, conducted comprehensive geological and geophysical interpretation and oil and gas resource evaluation, and rationally divided the blocks. Refer to the results report and bidding opinions of China Company, and make a comprehensive negotiation plan and preliminary selection opinions. Nine geophysical prospecting protocols are the technical basis of our public bidding, which enables us to master the latest and most advanced underground information and know fairly well.
Three, signed four oil exploration and development contracts, and learned the exploration and development experience.
In order to obtain the results of offshore oil and gas exploration and development at an early date and explore practical experience for foreign cooperation in large-scale exploration and development in the future, after 9 ~ 12 rounds of bilateral negotiations with Japanese and French oil companies, some sea areas and oil fields in Bohai Sea and Beibu Gulf where oil and gas have been found in China waters finally reached an agreement on May 29th, 1980. In Beijing and Tokyo, we signed four exploration and development contracts with France's Elf-Aquitaine, Total and Japan's JNOC Oil Company respectively, including China-France Bohai Central, China-France South China Sea Beibu Gulf, China-Japan Bohai Southwest and China-Japan Bohai Chengbei Oilfield. These contracts are the first batch of China foreign cooperation contracts signed by both parties after repeated negotiations. Therefore, their basic conditions are "low-risk cooperative development, crude oil compensation, and Chinese fixed retention". Specifically: Shizhituo in the middle of Bohai Sea between China and France-the eastern part of Bohai Sea, with an area of 9450km2；; Northeast China-French Beibu Gulf, with an area of10000km2; ; The southern and western waters of the Bohai Sea between China and Japan cover an area of 25,500 square kilometers. The exploration operators of these three contracts are all foreign companies, and the exploration contract period is 4-5 years, which can be extended for two years. The Chinese exploration investment is 565,438+0%, discounting the work done (earthquake and drilling in the contract area), and the foreign exploration investment is 49%, which is invested by years.
As far as development is concerned, Chengbei Oilfield is the first offshore oilfield in China to cooperate with foreign oil companies. 1On May 29th, 980, China Offshore Oil Corporation and Jurassic Society of Chengbei Oilfield Development signed the Contract of Cooperation between CNOOC People's Republic of China (PRC) and Jurassic Society of Chengbei Oilfield Development for Oil Exploration and Development in the West of Bohai Sea. According to the contract, China will replace the foreign party as an oilfield operator at an appropriate time after the commercial production of the oilfield. Previously, there were only/kloc-0 exploratory wells, 3 appraisal wells and No.6 trial production platform in this oilfield. Due to the need of cooperation, the trial production ended on 198 10, and the cumulative oil production was 40× 104t. Later, China and Japan formulated the overall development plan of Chengbei Oilfield, 1985 built two production platforms A and B as required, and 1987 put the oilfield into full production.
After intense study and practice, at the end of June, 1987, China Offshore Oil Corporation took over the Japanese management right in this oilfield. Practice has proved that offshore oil people can manage modern oil fields well through hard study, and manage them well. The oilfield development plan and its implementation effect won the third prize of national scientific and technological progress. Although Chengbei Oilfield has a large investment, as the first modern offshore oilfield in China, its successful practice has played an extremely important role in comprehensively improving the development technology of offshore oilfields in China.
During the implementation of the above-mentioned four bilateral contracts, the Chinese side has set up corresponding equivalent working institutions to cooperate with foreign parties. In the process of cooperation with international oil companies, learn foreign technology and management experience; All kinds of technical contracting companies in China also understand and master international standards, learn and improve their professional skills and complete the contracting work through anti-contracting.
Practice has proved that it is an effective way to speed up the pace of offshore oil exploration and development in China by drawing lessons from international advanced technology and management methods, using foreign funds and technology and adopting a risky, phased and joint operation method.