World's largest oil trade show concludes with heavy Chinese presence

Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) 2014, the world's largest oil trade show, concluded Thursday in the U.S. city of Houston with a record high attendance, including a heavy Chinese presence.

The annual conference, held on May 5-8, attracted 108,300 attendees from 43 countries, a 46-year high, to converge at Reliant Park to learn about the up-to-date technologies in the deep-water drilling industry.

More than 100 Chinese companies attended this year's OTC to showcase their advantages and learn from others not only the latest technologies but also new ways of doing business.

Every trip to the conference has proved worthwhile as it brought immense industry knowledge and experience from the platform, said Yang Yun, executive vice president of Offshore Oil Engineering Co., an offshoot of the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation.

This year's event featured nine panel sessions, 29 executive keynote presentations at luncheons and breakfasts, and 308 technical papers.

His company performed well in the international market last year and secured several big contracts, which, in part, can be attributed to its strategy of reaching out and constantly updating its industrial expertise, Yang said.

The executive said Chinese oil companies have been doing great in shallow water drilling because of their high efficiency and low cost. But he also acknowledged that in the field of deep water exploration China still lags behind many developed countries.

"The problem is that we don't have core technologies. And our technologies lack innovation. This poses both challenges and opportunities," he said.

"We are eager to cooperate with foreign firms with advanced technologies to jointly develop the subsea resources. The potential for international cooperation in this area is huge and the prospect is rosy," he said.

On the potential of offshore oil industry, experts said though offshore wells can be at least 30 times more expensive than the ones on land, they promise bigger yields with production that can span decades. And the economic return is more predictable and risk is easier to manage.

Nearly half of the world's remaining recoverable oil is located offshore, and most of the "easy oil"-- shallow-water fields or those with ideal geological characteristics -- has already been discovered, John Gremp, chairman, president and CEO of FMC Technologies, an American global provider of equipment and services for oil companies, said at the conference.

In fact, nine of the 10 largest oil discoveries were in deep water last year.

Speakers from major, independent and national operators, government officials and academic researchers presented their views on a wide variety of topics, such as environmental protection and offshore safety, global markets, the impact of unconventional resources around the world and emerging opportunities as Mexico prepares to overhaul its energy policies.