Home News POLY-GCL Petroleum Group successfully produced the first barrel of crude oil in Ethiopia

POLY-GCL Petroleum Group successfully produced the first barrel of crude oil in Ethiopia

Jun 28 , 2018

In the morning of June 28 (Eastern Africa time), the site of Ethiopian oil & gas field was featured by clear weather and flying flags, and a red banner reading “warmly celebrate the successful production of the first barrel of crude oil in Ethiopia” was hung high above the HILALA-6 well site, where the commissioning ceremony for the trial crude oil mining project in the charge of POLY-GCL Petroleum Group Holdings Limited was held.

At about 11 o’clock, the commissioning ceremony was officially started. Meles Al-Mur (Ethiopian Mining Minister), Ahmed Sidi (Government Minister of Publicity), Abdul Muhammad (Somali Governor) and Liu Yu (Chinese Commercial Counsellor of Ethiopian Embassy) respectively made speeches to extend warm congratulations on the official operation of the trial crude oil mining project and sincere wishes for a bright future, and they all expressed that they would continuously pay attention to and support the stable development of the overseas oil & gas projects. Besides, Wuba Mohammed (Ethiopian Media and Information Technology Minister), Gebs Merkel (Deputy Minister of Public Sector), Tuturan (Deputy Minister of Mining), Axifa Kumsa (Deputy Minister), Abdullah Myriem (Eastern Military Commander), as well as such financial institutions and shareholders as China Development Bank, Poly Technology, China-Africa Fund for Industrial Cooperation, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, SINO IC Leasing and Ethiopian National Petroleum Corporation and such representatives of Party B as HBP, BGP, Hilong, Anton, Schlumberger were also present at the ceremony.

Yu Baodong, Chairman of POLY-GCL Petroleum Group, welcomed the leaders and guests present at the ceremony and briefly introduced the construction of overseas oil & gas projects and trial crude oil mining projects. He expressed gratitude to all those who have long paid attention to and supported the development of the projects, and paid tributes to oil & gas colleagues struggling in the front line of the projects. Subsequently, the ceremony entered the link of ribbon cutting and valve opening. Under the witness of all the guests, the oiling valve of HILALA pilot test well group was slowly opened, followed by the successful production of the first barrel of crude oil in Ethiopia.

The commencement of the trial crude oil mining project is another major business arrangement after the Overseas Oil & Gas Division obtained high-yield industrial oil flow in the HILALA Area. The project is designed to implement trial mining against the pilot test well group consisting of HILALA-6 well, 7# well and adjacent wells. Liquid handling capacity is designed as 150 tons per day, and the daily output of qualified crude oil is 90 tons. The quality of crude oil is excellent, sulfur-free, and corresponding API density value is 38, higher than international light oil classification standard. The project is Ethiopia’s first project aiming to produce crude oil and sell it to the outside world. It will bring the first batch of crude oil products in the oil & gas development history of Kejiadeng Basin, marking the overall progress of Ethiopian oil & gas industry toward resource utilization and market development, and marking the further enhancement on the cooperative relationship featured by mutual benefits, co-existence and common prosperity between China’s oil & gas enterprises and the governments of countries where their projects are present.