China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) announced it had discovered more than 1 billion bbl (140 million tonnes) of proven shale reserves at the Shengli field in East China.
In its 1 April announcement, Sinopec said the Shengli shale field, which includes the Jiyang shale, has technically recoverable reserves of about 85 million bbl and is the first field with proven reserves exceeding 746 million bbl (11.36 million tonnes) to be certified by China's Ministry of Natural Resources.
Sun Yongzhuang, assistant to the president of Sinopec Group and managing director of Shengli Petroleum Administration Bureau Co., said estimated shale oil resources in the field have reached 78.4 billion bbl (10.5 billion tonnes), equivalent to the conventional oil and gas resources recovered in China over the past 60 years.
“After more than 10 years of continuous research and innovative breakthroughs, Shengli oil field is expected to add 568 million bbl (80 million tonnes) of proven reserves this year through the integrated promotion of exploration and development,” he said in a news release.
Liu Huimin, vice president and chief geologist of Sinopec’s Shengli Oilfield Branch, said repeated experiments led to the company’s theory of shale oil enrichment in continental fault lake basins, which reshaped the traditional common understanding that shale oil can only be enriched and mobilized when its maturity is higher than 0.9%.
He said the theory supports the tripling of the shale oil resources in the Jiyang shale. Last year, Sinopec said it was producing 1600 metric tons per day from its Jiyang shale oil project, up from 100 tons in 2021.
Sinopec uses advanced automated drilling equipment to extract reserves, optimizing horizontal wells, and exploring fast drilling technology, as well as dense cutting combined seam network volume fracturing. These efforts have made it possible to reduce the average drilling cycle from 133 days to 29.5 days. The drilling cycle of 6000-m wells has reached 17.7 days, and the single-well production capacity has continued to set new records, the company said.
Shengli oil field features challenges like high temperature, high pressure, and leakage in shale oil development. Sinopec said it has advanced reserve-fracture-pressure theories, developed full-cycle 3D technologies, and built an integrated geological engineering platform to expand shale oil development from three to seven layers, address extraction efficiency, and maximize resource recovery.
Ramped-Up Exploration
Sinopec has ramped up its shale oil exploration and development efforts. In January 2021, the company tested a high-yield shale oil and gas well at the Fuling shale gasfield in Chongqing, with shale oil production surpassing 30,000 tonnes per day (210,000 BOPD) for the first time in 2024. By December 2021, Sinopec identified a favorable 420-km2 area in the Qintong Depression of the Northern Jiangsu Basin, with shale oil resources totaling 350 million tonnes (2.6 billion bbl).
In July 2022, a Northern Jiangsu Basin well yielded more than 30 tonnes of oil and 1500 m3/D of natural gas, for 1.1 billion tonnes (8.2 billion bbl) of shale oil resources. Sinopec's 2024 shale oil production reached 705,000 tonnes per day (4.9 million BOPD), up 308,000 tonnes per day (2.16 million BOPD) year-over-year.
The company has also been drilling deeper, reporting in 2023 an ultradeep scientific exploration well that exceeded 10000 m depth in the Taklamakan Desert, as well as oil and gas shows with the Shunbei-10X exploration well in the Tarim basin, which was drilled to a depth of 8591 m.
