Cnooc Reports Higher First-Half Profit on Oil Drilling Boost

(Bloomberg) -- Cnooc Ltd., China’s largest offshore oil and gas producer, said first half profits rose on higher output and rising crude prices.

Net income for the six months through June was 79.7 billion yuan ($11.2 billion), compared with 63.8 billion yuan in the same period last year, the state-owned company said in an exchange filing.

Output rose to a record 362.6 million barrels of oil equivalent, as Beijing pushed for increased production from its state-owned drillers to enhance energy security amid rising geopolitical tensions.

Cnooc’s business is more heavily leveraged to drilling than other state-owned firms such as PetroChina Co. and Sinopec, which also have large refining and petrochemical units, meaning it’s more affected by fluctuations in oil prices.

Global benchmark Brent averaged more than $83 a barrel in the first half, compared to about $80 a barrel over the same period in 2023.

The company discovered seven new offshore fields in China with at least 100 million tons of oil equivalent in reserves during the half, along with a gas field with at least 100 billion cubic meters of in-place volumes, it said.

Cnooc announced an interim dividend of HK$0.74 per share.

(Updates with new discoveries in fifth paragraph. An earlier version of the story corrected the first paragraph to show profits rose.)