First large-scale oil field of 100 million tons discovered in the northern part of Laizhou Bay in the Bohai Sea

In 2018, CNPC’s official website announced an important breakthrough in the exploration of primary oil and gas reservoirs in the Bohai Bay Basin. The exploratory well deployed by CNPC’s Dagang Oilfield in this area, Qigu 8, was successfully completed; it produces over 160,000 cubic meters of natural gas per day without any hydrogen sulfide, along with 46.3 cubic meters of condensate per day. This also means that CNPC might discover the next \"100-million-ton\" oil and gas field in the Bohai Bay! The Huanghua Depression, where Well Qigu 8 is located, differs from the Jizhong and Liaohe Depressions in that it retains relatively intact Carboniferous and Permian strata. The coal-bearing source rocks here are thick, widely distributed, and have a high hydrocarbon generation capacity, providing ideal geological conditions for the exploration of primary oil and gas reservoirs. According to estimates, the total resource volume of the Huanghua Depression is 784 million tons. The Dagang Oil Field, which has been under development for many years, is now in the middle to later stages of its development, but it is still full of vitality! In early July, Well Cheng66X1, the first 100-ton self-priming well in the Dagang Oilfield in 2018, was completed. Well Cheng66X1 is located in Xigao Tou Village, in the northeast of Dagang Oil Production Plant No. 2. It is a pilot exploration well drilled by the Dagang Oilfield in the Qinan low slope area, based on the approach of detailed exploration and efficient exploration. On June 18, this well was vented using a 5-mm nozzle, producing 157 cubic meters of oil and 6,444 cubic meters of gas per day. As of July 3, well Cheng66X1 in the Dagang Oilfield had produced 432 tons of oil and 25,100 cubic meters of gas since perforation and venting, with stable production operations. In 2017, the Dagang Oilfield produced 4.0278 million tons of crude oil and 509 million cubic meters of natural gas for industrial use throughout that year. It is particularly noteworthy that throughout 2017, the Dagang Oilfield had 14 wells with a daily production of over 50 tons and 9 wells with a daily production of over 100 tons. As a result, one reservoir expansion area with a capacity of 50 million tons was created, as well as another such area; in addition, three high-efficiency production areas with a capacity of 50,000 tons each were developed, resulting in an additional crude oil production capacity of 177,100 tons. New reserve blocks such as Guan 1618 achieved discovery in the same year, reserve addition in the same year, production commencement in the same year, and commercial operation in the same year. The Bohai Bay Basin, where the Dagang Oil Field is located, is one of the three basins in China with new oil reserves exceeding 100 million tons; the other two are the Ordos Basin and the Junggar Basin. In the approximately 200,000 square kilometer area of the Bohai Bay Basin, seven major oil and gas fields have been discovered successively: Shengli, Liaohe, North China, Dagang, Zhongyuan, Bohai, and Jidong. CNOOC’s Bohai Oilfield, which is now among China’s third-largest oil and gas fields, has maintained an output of over 30 million tons for several consecutive years. Last August, the Bozhong 34-1 oil field in the Bohai Sea oilfield region passed the evaluation successfully, rising from an oilfield of tens of millions of tons to a large oilfield with production volumes in the hundreds of millions of cubic meters – thus another oilfield of that scale was born within CNOOC’s Bohai Sea oilfield operations! Although the discovery of Well Qi Gu 8 in CNPC’s Dagang Oilfield is not as groundbreaking as that of Well Bo Zhong 34-1 in CNOOC’s oilfield, it represents a significant breakthrough in the exploration of primitive oil and gas reservoirs in the Paleozoic era associated with the Qi Bei submarine hill structure. It provides a model for the exploration of similar primitive oil and gas reservoirs in the Bohai Bay Basin, and also boosts CNPC’s confidence in developing the various existing oilfields in this basin!

Oceanic extraction is far more difficult than that on land; it is currently used as reserve oil fields and there is no urgency to develop them!

They are all mined from the coastal mudflats. CNPC has oil fields in Dagang and Tangshan; Sinopec also has oil fields along the coast of Shandong; CNOOC has oil fields in the Bohai Bay