A final contract has yet to be signed, but the Chinese state oil company has a verbal agreement with Transocean and is expected to sign a leasing contract soon, according to sources familiar with the deal.
The agreement was made during the US drilling giant's recent visit to China.
This followed the Chinese government's endorsement in early March of a plan by PetroChina to drill its first deep-water wildcat in the Huaguang trough, which is the subject of a territorial dispute between China and Vietnam.
Early
