BEIJING, January 1, 2000 --- CNOOC announces today that CNOOC′s company wide Y2K project had been completed on schedule without any impact to the operations. The Project is addressing the issue of computer programs and embedded computer chips being unable to distinguish between the year 1900 and the year 2000.

CNOOC had engaged various parties to assist in the completion of certain phases of the projects. The general phases are 1) inventorying year 2000 items, 2) assigning priorities to identified items, 3) assessing the Year 2000 compliance of items determine to be material to the company, 4) repairing or replacing material items that are determined not to be Year 2000 compliant, 5) testing material items and 6) designing and implementing contingency and business continuation plans for each organization and company location.

The company has business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place that cover its worldwide operations and practiced the plan in December 1999.

More than 4000 set equipment, include networking system, software and hardware, have to be tested, upgraded for Y2K readiness, completed 100% of them. Around 35.2 million RMB (4.4 million US$) had been spent on Year 2000 Project.

After a reorganization in 1999, CNOOC transferred its operations to CNOOC Limited, a vehicle through which CNOOC conducts oil and gas operations.

CNOOC Limited is the largest producer of oil and gas offshore China and is one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies in the world with the net proved reserve of approximately 1.8 billion as of the December 31, 1999.