China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) Discovers MASSIVE Oil And Gas Field in Northwest China

On 18^th April 2021, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the Chinese state-owned energy giant, announced that China has discovered a new oil and gas deposit containing an estimated billion tons of super-deep oil and gas. China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), is the third largest oil and gas company in the world, and the discovered new block is in the Fuman Oilfield in Tarim Basin in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

The oilfield is known as one of the toughest area to drill, due to the fact that majority of the oil and gas deposits are around at 27,000 feet (8,000 meters). The drilling depth in the oilfield reached 8,470 meters and test column height reached 550 meters, a record in both categories for the deepest oil production and the highest oil column in the desert area of the Tarim Basin.

The oilfield was discovered in 2015, and after its discovery, output of the region grew from around 30,000 tons to 1.52 million tons in 2020, with an estimated production of about 2.0 million tons since the beginning of 2021. The newly discovered oilfield is expected to produce 4.0 million tons of oil and 49.4 billion cubic feet (1.4 billion cubic meters) of natural gas annually before 2025.

According to Yang Xuewen, General Manager of Tarim Oilfield Co under CNPC, they drilled 56 wells in the Fuman area before discovering the new reserve. The newly discovered reserves could be the largest discovery in the Fuman Oilfield in last 10 years. Despite being one of the toughest areas to drill, exploration success rate of new wells have gone up from 75% to 95% in the Tarim Oilfield area.

Accroding to CNPC, they have discovered another deposit in the area with an estimated billion tons of shale oil. This deposit of shale oil is in the Ordos Basin and the estimated deposit amount makes it the biggest shale oil field in the country.

The new shale oil field was discovered by Changqing Oilfield Co. It is a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and have done some major discoveries in the last three years. by Changqing Oilfield Co., discovered 359 million tons of shale oil in the Qingcheng region, in the northwestern Gansu Province two years ago. Over the past few years, Changqing Oilfield Co., has expanded its range of exploring and the discovery of the latest billion-ton shale oil is expected to be a major discovery in Chinese shale oil exploration industry.