Having made a fortune in the Chinese real estate business, Ni Zhaoxing is now making his first forays into the oil industry with a series of risk exploration ventures.

      Ni ZHAOXING has a reputation as one of China's top real estate developers, but his latest move is an attempt to diversity into the hydrocarbon business. In doing so, he is one the first of a new breed of wealthy Chinese to invest in the upstream sector overseas.As chairman of one of China's top real estate developers,Zhong Rong group, Ni has helped build the spectacular skyline of Shanghai's booming financial district.
      Ni decided to make his first forays into the oil business one morning in 2004 when he was reading a newspaper in his spacious down-town Beijing office. “It was time to invest in resources”, he says.

      That same year, Ni was invited to participate in a bid round for oil exploration blocks in the Williston basin in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

      Ni had dispatched a team in search of opportunities for copper mine development in Canada prior to the onshore licensing round. In the months that followed, Canadian government officials and legal experts allayed his concerns about investing in Canada's upstream sector.

      However, Ni knew it was impossible to proceed, let alone succeed, without support from the Chinese government, he submitted his proposal to the country's top economic planning body, the National Development & Reform Com-mission (NDRC).

      The NDRC had no hesitation in backing Ni's proposal. It gave his company 30 million for the first phase of exploration. Ni was later awarded exploration rights for Block 25 in the Williston basin.

      Born in 1956 in Zhejiang province in eastern China, Ni's success is not unusual for businessmen from Zhejiang, who are known for their entrepreneurship.

      He began his journey in 1980 as owner of a small construction- materials factory in a village on the outskirts of the provincial capital Hangzhou, having spent the previous eight years doing farm work.After enjoying early success with the factory, he moved to the southern economic power-house of Shenzhen, where then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping had initiated mar-ket reforms.

      In 1992, the Ni set his sights on the rough-and-tumble real-estate market. He founded Zhong Rong in Hangzhou, hoping to cash in on the booming property market.

      This time, Ni hit gold. Among his current projects is a 43-storey building in Shanghai's financial district. Ni is also building a collection of 78 neoclassical villas in mountains west of Beijing. He says these villas are designed to become the country headquarters of big foreign companies, including BP and ExxonMobil.

      Zhong Rong now has assets worth 6 billion yuan ($ 770 million) with a net worth of $ 190 million. Ni plans to drill 267 wells in the field in Saskatchewan, including 147 production wells. Zhong Rong's energy development in Canada is spearheaded by his subsidiary, Canadian Capital Energy Corporation, of which his wife Gong Jianxin is the chairman. Ni has set his sights beyond Canada. Last year he was invited to bid for the 1000 square kilometers onshore Block 39 in Oman.

      Ni spent millions of dollars on persuading geologists from CNPC's Huabei Oil Field Company to reassess the existing data on the block. The reappraisal let to the conclusion that at least 50 million tones of reserves would need to be proven to justify development. Ni decided to give up on the venture due to the lack of commerciality.“Our oversea strategy is very clear”, says Ni.“We only go into risk explora-tion on the outlying blocks of producing fields.”He says such an approach could minimize investment risk, because a license for risk exploration costs less than one for developing an existing field. Since the exploration blocks in which he is interested are near existing fields, the chances of a commercial discovery are higher.

      Ni does not see much opportunity for investing in China's domestic oil and gas exploration scene, especially as the government has yet to open it to independents and private business. He has no time for what he sees as the conventional way of doing business in China, which normally involves making connections with decision-making officials.He says he can be successful without flattering officials.

      Ni is fond of collecting jade, ancient Chinese paint-ing s and calligraphies. He is now doing a master's degree in fine arts at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, China's top art university.

      He is building his own private museum in Beijing to display his own jade, paintings and calligraphy collection.

      He also has plans to open a big public museum at Hangzhou West Lake International Convention Center in Hangzhou.