Investors eye oil wells as prices slump

The slump in oil prices has triggered a flurry of Chinese investment in oil wells, in a bid to get a high return from the black gold.

Global House Buyer, a Beijing-based services provider to Chinese overseas investors, said on Saturday that the company now has presented an investment opportunity in oil wells in Texas, US, to Chinese investors.

According to the company, the project, involving six oil wells in an area of 2,240 acres, is located in Crockett County in Texas. Cooperating with local developers, the project is expected to attract a total of $4 million investment at the first stage, with the minimum investment of $100,000 each.

The annual return could reach more than 12 percent, the company said.

"The return is based on our prediction of future oil prices," Liu Bin, general manager responsible for the US investment at Global House Buyer, told the Global Times on Saturday.

Liu predicts that the current oil price still has room to rise, which will generate higher profits for the project.

Oil prices rose from nearly a 6-year low at around $45 per barrel on January 12 to $48.30 per barrel on Thursday.

On Friday, the price of New York crude oil futures closed at $ 48.69 a barrel. It is widely believe that the oil price could rise to $70 or $80 per barrel this year.

According to Liu, the oil wells have been in operation since 2012. Currently, the total output per day is about 170,000 barrels, and they still have more than 10 years of drilling capacity with a stable output.

"Investing in the oil wells could be read as another sort of real estate investment," Shi Ruixue, CEO of Global House Buyer, said.

Investing in oil well is a market-oriented activity, and it is understandable why investors are flocking to the oil sector, as the oil prices are still at a low level, Han Xiaoping, chief information officer at energy portal china5e.com, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"Chinese investors have gained more experience about risks after the financial crisis in 2009. It is a good timing to invest in oil projects as the prices are still low. But if the prices move further down, it will pose risks to oil investment," Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

He Shaohua, a potential investor who has invested in housing projects in the US, told the Global Times that he planned to invest $100,000 in the oil wells, as it is good to diversify his investment.