CNOOC’s new global headquarters

CNOOC building’s shape “recalls an oil tankers bow”

In the summer of 2005, CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company 中国海洋石油总公司) attained global fame after trying to acquire American energy company UNOCAL, an attempt that was blocked after by a China-panicked US House of Representives that voted 333 vs. 92 against the deal.

The move resulted in UNOCAL being acquired by Chevron for about US$16 billion, less than the US$ 18.5 billion that CNOOC had offered.

The failed takeover bid has done nothing to dampen CNOOC’s ambitions. On January 10 2006, CNOOC

signed an agreement with SAPETRO to acquire a 45% stake in Offshore Oil-Mining License (OML) 130 in Nigeria for more than US$2 billion in cash.

On June 30, CNOOC invested RMB 1.7 billion (US$ .02 billion) to build the Asia’s largest offshore oil equipment production facility in Qingdao. On July 17, CNOOC announced a plan to start buying up and operating consumer filling stations in Guangzhou, a move seen with some hostility by SINOPEC, the other state-owned energy giant that operates most filling stations nationwide.

With all this activity, CNOOC needed a new global headquarters: the company has just started moving into their new building just inside the Second Ring Road at Chaoyangmen in Beijing (pictured in both images).

Designed by American architectural firm KPF (Kohn Pederson Fox Architects), the firm behind the design of the Shanghai World Financial Center in Shanghai, the Rodin Museum in Seoul, and also the Architect-of-Record for the latest expansion of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

According to KPF’s website, the new CNOOC building’s form is intended to evoke “images of offshore oil production: the prow-like shape recalls an oil tanker’s bow and the tower elevated, above the ground on piloti, suggests an offshore oil derrick”.