Tokyo (Platts)--26Feb2013/634 am EST/1134 GMT

China's oil and gas companies could lift their total overseas equity production to 3 million b/d by 2015, the executive director of the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

"Chinese national oil companies are present everywhere in [the] fastest growing fields," Maria van der Hoeven said in an interview with Platts in Tokyo.

"Assuming that [their spending] on mergers and acquisitions remains in line with the average of the last few years, overseas output by these companies will reach 3 million b/d by 2015," she said.

Van der Hoeven added that Chinese companies' acquisitions of some $25 billion over 2009-11 resulted in oil supply growth of 1.1 million b/d to 1.7 million b/d.

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Chinese oil companies have been among the world's most aggressive buyers in the last few years. Since 2010, nearly $16 billion has been spent on acquiring unconventional assets in Canada and the US. The latest came on Monday, when Sinopec announced it would take a 50% interest in 850,000 acres in northern Oklahoma's Mississippi Lime play, owned by Chesapeake Energy, for $1.02 billion in cash.

Sinopec has been the most aggressive in terms of acquisitions over the last few years, largely because as China's largest refiner it suffers from poor margins due to price controls at the pump, while its domestic upstream growth is limited as China's fields are mature and in decline. Its main overseas division, Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Corp., reported overseas equity crude output of about 460,000 b/d for 2011.

Rival China National Petroleum Corp. said last month that its equity oil and gas production from overseas projects averaged 1.05 million barrels of oil equivalent last year.

Offshore monopoly producer China National Offshore Oil Corp. on Monday announced completion of its $15.1 billion acquisition of Canada's Nexen Inc., which will significantly boost its foreign production. CNOOC said its third-quarter overseas production last year averaged 218,500 boe/d of oil and gas.

--Takeo Kumagai, takeo_kumagai@platts.com

--Song Yen Ling, yen_ling_song@platts.com
--Edited by Jonathan Fox, jonathan_fox@platts.com

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