China's Pearl River Estuary Basin has made another significant oil and gas discovery.

2021-1-25 17:17:33 Source: China Mining News

On January 25, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (referred to as "CNOOC") announced that the Ministry of Natural Resources recently approved the proven geological reserves of the Huizhou 26-6 oil and gas field to be 50 million cubic meters of oil equivalent, marking another significant oil and gas discovery in China's Pearl River Estuary Basin. This will effectively enhance the clean energy supply capacity in South China and provide energy security for the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the demonstration area for socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The Huizhou 26-6 oil and gas field is located in China's Pearl River Estuary Basin, 162 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong, with an average water depth of about 113 meters. The exploratory well encountered an oil and gas layer with a thickness of about 422.2 meters, making it the largest oil and gas field discovered through self-operated exploration in the Pearl River Estuary Basin.

Gao Yangdong, chief geologist of CNOOC's Shenzhen branch, told reporters that the discovery well of the Huizhou 26-6 oil and gas field tested a daily production of over 500 cubic meters of crude oil and more than 600,000 cubic meters of natural gas. The produced natural gas can be continuously delivered to thousands of households in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area after being brought ashore, contributing more clean energy to the construction of a "green ecological bay area." The production of this oil and gas field will bring considerable social and economic benefits, providing resource security for the production of 20 million tons in the eastern South China Sea oil fields.

Since 2018, under the guidance of CNOOC's "Seven-Year Action Plan" for increasing reserves and production, scientific research and exploration personnel in the eastern South China Sea oil fields have firmly believed in the "new role of old oil fields," proposed new exploration ideas, systematically sorted out, analyzed layer by layer, and conducted in-depth research. They established a storage control mechanism for ancient buried hills with characteristics of the Pearl River Estuary Basin, creatively forming a geological operation system for complex oil and gas reservoirs, providing key technical support for the verification of geological reserves in the Huizhou 26-6 structure, achieving a historic breakthrough in the exploration of ancient buried hills in the eastern South China Sea.

Gao Yangdong introduced that the Huizhou 26-6 oil and gas field is the first major exploration breakthrough in the new field of ancient buried hills in the eastern South China Sea, breaking the 40-year history of no commercial discoveries in the buried hill area of the eastern South China Sea. This demonstrates the huge exploration prospects in this field. Currently, the eastern South China Sea oil fields have become an important offshore oil and gas production base in China, achieving an oil and gas output of over 10 million cubic meters for 25 consecutive years and over 15 million cubic meters for 6 consecutive years.

Wang Dongjin, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of CNOOC, stated: "The exploration discovery of the Huizhou 26-6 oil and gas field is an important progress made by CNOOC in implementing the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping and increasing domestic exploration and development efforts. In the future, CNOOC will continue to strengthen risk exploration in new areas and fields, aiming to discover more oil and gas resources, contributing more to ensuring national energy security and promoting the high-quality development of China's offshore oil industry."

Website Editor: Gong Li