CNOOC Taps China’s First Offshore Shale Oil Well
- July 28, 2022
- Posted by: Quatro Strategies
- Category: Energy
China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced it has tapped commercial flows of oil and gas from a shale exploration well in the South China Sea. This marks China’s first successfully drilled offshore shale oil well. The exploration well, Weiye-1, at the Beibuwan basin tested daily production of 20 cubic meters (126 barrels) of oil and 1,589 cubic meters of natural gas.
The whole Beibuwan basin could hold about 1.2 billion tonnes of prospective shale oil resource.
Since Beijing’s call to ramp up domestic energy supply security, national oil companies have accelerated efforts to tap shale deposits despite geological challenges and higher costs.
By late 2021, China produced only 35,000 barrels per day (bpd) of shale oil, which is extracted from shale rocks and is more complex and expensive to produce than conventional crude, mostly in onshore northern Ordos basin and northwestern Jungar basin.
That equals less than 1% of its total oil output.
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