China's top offshore oil company CNOOC Ltd. is looking for opportunities in the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Caspian Sea but feels no pressure to make acquisitions, Chief Financial Officer Yang Hua said on Tuesday.
He said any foreign activities would not displace CNOOC's focus on home oil fields any time soon.
"Offshore China will always be our most important playing ground," Mr. Yang told reporters.
He named the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Caspian Sea as regions where CNOOC sees opportunities with attractive risk profiles. The company was willing to take on risks but wanted "manageable" ones, he said.
"But I'm under no pressure to do a deal for the sake of doing a deal."
He ruled out Russia for the time being.
An oil major could handle the uncertainties of operating in Russia but CNOOC sees itself as still too small, Mr. Yang said.
"It's a big boys' game. That's not our game yet," he said of Russia.
Mr. Yang restated that CNOOC was on track to meet a production target of 162-170 million barrels of oil equivalent this year, despite setbacks from typhoons.
"We are confident that we will get there despite everything," he said.
Mr. Yang celebrated CNOOC's exploration successes so far this year. The company said recently it had made 10 new oil and gas discoveries so far this year, including three in the second half of 2007.
Nine of the 10 were found independently and five were in the northern Bohai Bay.
On Tuesday, CNOOC also announced that Platform C of Phase II of its Penglai (PL) 19-3 oil field in Bohai Bay "has come on stream successfully." The field's facilities have a designed processing capacity of 190,000 barrels of oil per day, it said in a statement on the company website.
Mr. Yang said there was no way of knowing what next year held. "Whether our luck will be good or bad, I can't say," he said.
Up to 90 per cent of CNOOC's assets are located offshore China, a concentration that has attracted questions over whether and how the company should diversify.
"I can't say what proportion offshore China will be in 10 years, but it will definitely still be very important," Mr. Yang said.