10-06-08 Nippon Oil is boosting oil and natural gas exploration overseas in order to lift production volumes as it becomes increasingly difficult to acquire active fields.
The company plans to spend yen 70 bn ($ 654 mm) on overseas exploration from fiscal 2008 through fiscal 2010, 2.3 times as much as in the prior three-year period. It will increase the number of test wells it drills worldwide to 50, a significant increase from the 18 drilled during the previous three years.

Nippon Oil owns exploration areas in 7 locations in the Gulf of Mexico off the US coast, and is planning 10 test wells there. It also plans to drill nearly 10 wells in both Papua New Guinea, where it is developing a liquefied natural gas business, and the North Sea, where it has a number of oil and gas fields.
In Africa, it will begin exploration work this summer in a field in Libya that it first acquired in 2005.

The company will also start exploration in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand in drilling zones acquired late lastyear.
With global resource prices soaring, acquiring fields ready to produce oil and gas has become more difficult, prompting Nippon Oil to place more emphasis on preproduction drilling areas.