China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) discovered China's first deepwater deep-stratum large gas field with proven natural gas reserves exceeding 50 billion cubic meters and proven condensate oil reserves of over 3 million cubic meters in waters southeast of South China's Hainan Province on Oct 19.
It was the greatest breakthrough in the Songnan-Baodao area in more than 50 years and a result of the acceleration of deepwater exploration.
In the field of offshore oil and gas exploration, waters with depth of more than 300 meters are generally defined as "deepwater", and wells with depth of more than 3,500 meters are "deep wells".
About 150 kilometers from Shenhai Yihao ultra-deepsea gas field, dubbed Deep Sea No 1, the first large-scale ultra-deepwater gas field independently explored and developed by China, the newly-discovered Baodao 21-1 gas field has a maximum operating depth of more than 1,500 meters and a completed well depth of more than 5,000 meters. It also has extremely complex marine geological conditions.
According to CNOOC's overall plan, by 2025, the total proven reserves of the Yingge Sea, Qiongdongnan and Pearl River Mouth basins is expected to reach 1 trillion cubic meters. The high-quality clean energy resource will be directly transmitted to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Hainan to support regional construction and energy structural transformation.
(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)
