(Yicai Global) March 20 -- China National Petroleum Corp. has successfully extracted some 44,000 tons of oil from Brazil's Libra field, marking the completion of the state-owned firm's first-ever deep-water oil project.

The Beijing-based oil giant worked with industry counterpart China National Offshore Oil Corp. to complete the extraction, with oil collected to be transferred back to China through Uruguay, reported China Petroleum Daily.

Originally contracted in December 2013, the Libra project marked the first production-sharing project for Chinese companies with the two firms holding 10 percent of rights and interests each. The project took four years to go from initial exploration to transporting the first tanker of crude.

CNPC also enlisted the help of French multinational oil and gas company Total SA to form an oil discharge research team with its own Latin American unit to overcome management and technology difficulties.