Letter from China: State firms stay committed to hydrocarbons

Beijing has made big promises on emissions, but China’s NOCs are still going for gas

As BP marked its UK offshore wind debut with a blockbuster winning bid, on the other side of the world one of China’s biggest energy producers got to work installing a giant floating platform in a show of commitment to fossil fuels. The 100,000t floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) platform—the world’s biggest, according to operator Cnooc, one of Chinas’ ‘big three’ state-controlled oil and gas firms—will serve China’s first domestically operated deepwater gas field in the South China Sea. Built to last 150 years, it will help the Lingshui 17-2 field meet one-quarter of gas demand in the sprawling Greater Bay Area, which includes Hong Kong and Macao. Cnooc’s work at the Lingshu