Interview: Xu Wenrong, president of BGP

摘要

As the world's largest land geophysical service company, BGP, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), is a force to contend with when competing for contracts in the international arena. BGP's metamorphosis from a strictly government entity to one of the most competitive players in the international geophysical market has extended its field of operations beyond China and into exploration projects in Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Indonesia, Myanmar, Venezuela, Mexico, and Peru among others. At the helm of BGP since 1999, President Xu Wenrong has been a strong advocate of not just expansion but globalization. A graduate of the Petroleum University of China in 1982, he was enlisted by a western company, Geophysical Service Incorporated, for one year, and again in 1985, to supervise a geoscience project for CNPC. This early and intensive association with western business was relatively rare among Chinese people of Xu's generation at a time when China had just barely started the policy of opening its economy to international business. He feels that his exposure to international service companies early on in his career has been instrumental in developing an understanding of the global market.