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New breakthrough in shale gas fracturing technology in China: A number of additional wells have produced high-volume industrial gas flows. Author/Source: Date: 1-31-2019. Clicks: 87. Reporters learned from Sinopec’s Fuling Shale Gas Field, China’s largest shale gas field, that in late January, as a series of additional wells in this field achieved high-volume industrial gas flows of over 300,000 cubic meters per day during testing, China made a new breakthrough in fracturing technology for shale gas development. In 2018, the Fuling shale gas field produced over 6 billion cubic meters of gas, but it also faced challenges such as a rapid decline in production in the existing fields, a significant drop in investment per well, as well as heavy responsibilities and pressures related to ensuring a stable supply of natural gas. To this end, the Fuling shale gas field has intensified its efforts in scientific and technological research, drilling more \"new wells\" among the existing \"old wells\" in order to maximize the efficiency of resource exploitation within the area covered by its mining rights, which constitutes an inevitable approach to ensuring a stable supply of gas from this field. A responsible official from Sinopec Jianghan Oilfield Fuling Shale Gas Company explained that increasing the number of wells is crucial for maintaining stable gas production in such fields; however, it is quite difficult to drill high-yield wells in old fields where the degree of extraction is already high and the available reserves have decreased. How to optimize the fracturing process has become the primary challenge to overcome. Fuling Shale Gas Company conducted in-depth analysis and research on aspects such as the shale gas fracturing and testing processes, materials used in well operations, and organizational arrangements for these operations. It optimized the fracturing project plans by adopting a new fracturing technique that combines \"multiple closely spaced clusters + ball insertion for direction control + continuous sand injection.\" By increasing the number of perforation clusters in each section and reducing the distance between them, as well as changing the structure from stage one to stage two per section, the complexity of modifying the underground fracture network was increased, resulting in the formation being fragmented more thoroughly and thus an increase in the area through which gas can escape. To maximize the opening of the fractures and improve their stability after fracturing, thereby enabling the formation to open up more fully, they focused on increasing the amount of sand used, raising the sand injection rate to as much as 2 tons per meter. This led to a significant improvement in the fracture’s permeability and support area. Tests were conducted on a series of wells in the old Jiaoshiba area that were designed for enhanced gas production, including wells such as Jiaoye 19-7HF, Jiaoye 19-9HF, Jiaoye 19-8HF, and Jiaoye 9-5HF; these wells achieved high production rates of 310,000 cubic meters per day, 360,000 cubic meters per day, 370,000 cubic meters per day, and 380,000 cubic meters per day, respectively. It is reported that the Fuling shale gas field will next summarize the experience gained from the development of additional wells, continuously optimize and standardize the fracturing processes, and advance such development in a high-quality, fast, and efficient manner.