Vietnam Halts South China Sea Drilling Project Under Pressure From Beijing

Located in waters around 350 metres (1,148 ft) deep, it is considered to be profitable from around $60 per barrel. Current Brent crude oil prices are almost $70 per barrel.

The field's estimated potential recovery is around 45 million barrels of crude oil, 172 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 2.3 million barrels of condensate, a super light form of crude oil that is mostly a byproduct of gas production.

Global crude oil, by comparison, is at almost 100 million barrels per day. Global gas consumption is around 4 trillion cubic metres per year.

The move came as Repsol was making final preparations for commercial drilling, according to the BBC, which first reported the news on Friday.

A rig, the Ensco 8504, was due to depart from Singapore for the drill site on Thursday, the BBC said, citing an unnamed energy industry source.

Repsol spent around 33 million euros ($41 million) on exploration in Vietnam last year, according to the company's 2017 profit and loss statement.

Repsol's top management considers the Red Emperor site one of the company's future growth projects.

Repsol, which has a 51.75 percent stake in the project, signed a 384-million-euro rental contract for a rig to start work on a Vietnamese site in 2019, according to the statement.

Just under half the company's 1 billion euro ($1.23 billion) investments for which contracts have been signed for 2018 are in Vietnam.

($1=0.8115 euros) (Additional reporting by Jose Elias Rodriguez in MADRID and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING Editing by Clarence Fernandez)