Our country becomes the third to achieve industrialized production of shale gas**

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“Following the United States and Canada, China became the third country to achieve industrial-scale production of shale gas. In the first half of this year, China produced 1.8 billion cubic meters of shale gas. ”This is information that journalists obtained recently from the Special Forum on Geological Technology Innovation at the 2015 China International Mining Conference. Zhai Gangyi is a doctor at the Oil and Gas Resources Exploration Center of the China Geological Survey. In a presentation he gave at the forum titled \"New Advances in the Exploration and Development of Shale Gas in China,\" he said that China has granted 54 exploration rights for shale gas, covering an area of 170,000 square kilometers; these areas are mainly located in the Sichuan Basin and its surrounding regions, with total investments exceeding 25 billion yuan. As of May this year, a total of 840 shale gas wells have been drilled across the country ； As of July this year, a shale gas production capacity of 4.5 billion cubic meters per year has been established. Zhai Gangyi explained that since the first production of 25 million cubic meters in 2012, shale gas production in China has entered a phase of rapid growth. In 2013, the national shale gas production reached 200 million cubic meters ； In 2014, the national shale gas production reached 1.3 billion cubic meters ； In just the first half of this year, China’s shale gas production reached 1.8 billion cubic meters. Zhai Gangyi believes that the development of shale gas in China still faces significant challenges: First, although China’s shale gas resources hold great potential, the patterns of their concentration are not well understood. In particular, the mechanisms underlying the formation and concentration of different types of shale gas are not clearly known, which affects the determination of the available resources for exploitation. Secondly, the existing exploration breakthroughs are limited to specific areas and individual strata, and there is still a long way to go before achieving truly significant breakthroughs. Third, the localization of technical equipment and the development of core technologies still require further efforts and breakthroughs. Fourth, the cost per well remains high, posing challenges to the economic development of shale gas in China.