Chinese Giant Sinopec Starts Production From Asia’s Deepest Oil and Gas Well

China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, commonly known as Sinopec, has seen the first oil and gas flows from the deepest onshore well in Asia, which was recently completed, the Chinese energy giant and top refiner said this week.

On Wednesday, Sinopec struck “sizeable oil and gas flows” in the Yuejin 3-3XC well of its Project Deep Earth NO.1 in the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the company said. Daily flows of hydrocarbons were 200 tons of crude and liquids and 50,000 cubic meters of gas.

The well depth is 9,432 meters (30,945 ft)—a new record set for the deepest onshore well in Asia.

“The remarkable success proves that China's Deep Earth technologies are now in the front rank of the world, which paves the way for breaking 10,000-meter ultra depth both in technologies and equipment manufacturing in the upcoming future,” Sinopec said.

When the company started drilling the well in May this year, it said that it aimed to launch “pilot ultra-deep exploration projects and push the limits of depth through innovation-driven development of deep marine facies geological theory and exploration technologies.”

Other Chinese state-held giants are also drilling ultra-deep wells.

Earlier this year, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) started drilling an ultra-deep well with a designed depth of 10,520 meters (6.5 miles) in the Sichuan province.

The ultra-deep well is targeting natural gas and is located in the northwest of the Sichuan Basin. There are multiple sets of high-quality reservoirs superimposed in the ultra-deep layers of the region, Chinese media reported in July.

Chinese state-held energy majors have stepped up exploration and production efforts in recent years as China looks to boost its domestic oil and natural gas production. CNOOC and Sinopec have announced large offshore and onshore oil and gas discoveries in China in recent months.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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