China National Petroleum Corp is taking on the world with great success.

The nation's top oil producer last year began energy-exploration projects for the first time in Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan and Argentina.

This brings the total number of overseas countries where CNPC has projects in operation to 26, forming five major work regions including Africa, Central Asia, South America, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, the Beijing-based company said in a statement yesterday.

The contract it signed with Equatorial Guinea marks the first time that CNPC has ventured into a deep-water exploration project overseas. The company is normally an onshore specialist.

"Overseas oil and gas investment is in a rapidly growing period, and has become an important pillar for the company," CNPC said.

Deals galore

It signed nine overseas contracts last year, bringing the total to 69 by the end of 2006, said the company, which is the parent of Hong Kong-listed Petro China Co.

In its latest coup this month, CNPC signed a contract with Myanmar's government to explore in the country.

Crude output at CNPC's overseas operations rose 52.4 percent to 54.6 million tons last year, said a separate report by Xinhua news agency, citing executive speeches at the company's annual work conference yesterday.

The amount surpassed that of Daqing, China's flagship oilfield, which pumped 43.4 million tons of crude last year.

CNPC was entitled to 28.1 million tons of the 54.6 million tons of overseas output as the company usually cooperates with foreign counterparts in production-sharing agreements in the event of any commercial discoveries.

CNPC also produced 5.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas abroad last year, of which it was entitled to 3.8 billion cubic meters, the report said.

"The majority of the crude oil CNPC produced overseas is sold to local or international markets, and only a tiny portion of this is shipped to China," an unnamed company official was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

CNPC posted 2006 revenue of 806.1 billion yuan (103.6 billion U.S. dollars), up 16.2 percent from a year earlier.