CPC has been exploring for oil in Africa for decades. In 2006, it signed a contract with Chad’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy under the name of OPIC Africa. In 2011, it discovered a large amount of crude oil at the first well. In 2017, it was granted the development and production license for the Oryx Concession. It conducted trial production in February 2020. In October 2020, the first cargo of oil produced from Oryx Concession — a tanker carrying about 950 000 bbl of crude oil — departed from the Kribi terminal in Cameroon and arrived in Taiwan at the end of November.
CPC Chairman Jerry Ou said at the ceremony: “The Chad Oryx Concession is the first time that CPC has conducted exploration overseas as an operator and entered into development and production phase. This shows that CPC has the capacity to manage the whole life cycle of petroleum exploration and production project by itself. In the future, CPC will replicate its successful experience in Chad and will continue to expand overseas exploration areas to help achieve energy independence for Taiwan.”