Beijing, July 25, 2000 - CNOOC Limited (the "Company") is pleased to announce that Mr. Tso Kai-sum joins the board of the Company, formulating a board of 9 directors in which 2 are independent.

Aged 69, Mr. Tso Kai-sum is the Group Managing Director of Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited. He was appointed to the Board in 1985 and became Group Managing Director in 1997. Mr. Tso worked with the Hongkong Electric Group from 1966 to 1981, holding positions of Chief Project Engineer of The Hongkong Electric Company, Limited and Executive Director of Associated Technical Services Limited. He is also an Executive Director of Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited. He has extensive experience in property development and business in power generation. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering and is also a Chartered Engineer.

Mr. Liucheng Wei, Chairman, CEO & President of the Company, warmly welcomed Mr. Tso on board. He pointed out: "Mr. Tso has been a very successful business leader and an entrepreneur. When Mr. Tso is on the board, his extensive experience in power generation and business vision will certainly help our company in delivering our strategy, i.e. transforming from a leading E&P company into a leading energy company. It can extend our value chain from a single exploration and production segment to the middle stream, down stream and utilities. We have got to accommodate our company to the new world. This strategy is an answer to the ever changing industry, ever advancing technology."

Mr. Wei concluded with his comments with an outlook of the Company: "We will be much stronger in competition and much better in delivering shareholders′ value after completion of implementing the strategy in near future."

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