BEIJING, June 24 -- China National Offshore Oil Company Limited (CNOOC Ltd.) announced Tuesday that a new oil field in the South China Sea had started production with a current daily output reaching 31,000 barrels.

     The oil field, Xijiang (XJ) 23-1, is at Block XJ04 in the Pearl River estuary basin, about 19 km east of the XJ24-3 oil field. Its development facilities contain a platform, a floating production storage and offloading units (FPSO) and 15 producing wells.

     Currently, the field pumps about 31,000 barrels of oil per day from 10 wells. The other wells will begin production in succession. The peak daily production of XJ23-1 is expected to hit 40,000 barrels,according to CNOOC.

     XJ23-1 is the third field CNOOC has commenced production in 2008. The scheduled start-up of XJ23-1 will strengthen the company's ability to realize this year's production target as well as to benefit its long-term production growth in the eastern South China Sea, said Liu Jian, CNOCC executive vice president.

     XJ23-1 was discovered in 2003. CNOOC holds a 100-percent interest in the field and acts as the operator.

     Listed in Hong Kong and New York, CNOOC is China's largest offshore oil producer. The company produced 171 million barrels-of-oil-equivalent (BOE) last year, up 2.6 percent from a year ago.