At 12 o’clock in the morning on June 28, 2018, at the witness of Commercial Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia, the Governor of Somali region in Ethiopia, the Minister of Information Affairs of the Ethiopian Government, the Minister of the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines, the Director of Ethiopian Petroleum Bureau and other government representatives, and witnessed by representatives of financial institutions such as the China-Africa Fund for Industrial Cooperation, China Development Bank, and media including Xinhua News Agency reporters, Ethiopian National Television and other media organizations, the oil outlet valve of the pilot test wells in Hilala of Poly-GCL Petroleum Group Holding Co., Ltd. slowly opened. The trial production processing unit was successfully put into operation at one time, and Ethiopia’s first barrel of crude oil was successfully produced.

     In accordance with the 2018 crude oil trial production and commissioning target issued by GCL Group, in order to ensure the smooth implementation of the company’s crude oil trial production, Poly- GCL Petroleum Group established a crude oil trial production team. After many studies and researches, the Hilala block was confirmed to have crude oil geological reserve of 46.08 million tons, and the team finally selected Hilala-6 well and Hilala-7 well as pilot test wells to carry out the design and construction of surface processing devices.

     Under the conditions of tight schedule, heavy tasks, and lack of local resources in Ethiopia, after bidding, process plan comparison and selection, bid award, site survey, market research, logistics support, production organization, etc., the Company designed and built a surface facility project for 30,000 tons of crude oil trial production with a daily processing capacity of 150 tons of incoming liquid and production of 90 tons of crude oil per day. The crude oil produced in the trial is of excellent quality. It contains no sulfur, and has an API density of 38, which is higher than the international light crude oil standard.

    With the strong support of the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines, the crude oil under trial has gradually entered the territory of Ethiopia and began to be sold. This project is Ethiopia’s first project to produce crude oil and sell. It marks the advancement of the Ethiopian oil and gas industry in the direction of resource utilization and market development. It also marks the closer cooperation relationship between Chinese oil and gas companies and the Ethiopia country with more mutual benefit.

    The trial production of crude oil has attracted great attention from all walks of life in China and Ethiopia. It is an important milestone in the history of Ethiopian petroleum industry development, and it is also a major landmark event in the third industrial transformation of GCL Group.