China’s state-owned energy giant Sinopec announced a significant milestone in natural gas exploration on Tuesday. The company revealed that a well in the Sichuan Basin, located in Southwest China, has reached a high daily output of 314,500 cubic meters of industrial gas. This discovery is expected to increase gas reserves and production in the Puguang area.
The well, known as Tiebei-1 Sidetrack HF (Horizontal Fracturing) Well, reached a vertical depth of over 5,300 meters, setting a new record for the deepest shale gas well in China. The breakthrough will provide essential technical insights for the development of ultra-deep shale gas reserves across the Sichuan Basin, an area believed to hold 16.5 trillion cubic meters of such resources.
China has abundant shale gas reserves, but many of these are trapped in ultra-deep, geologically complex formations, known as “deep-Earth forbidden zones.” Extracting gas from these areas requires advanced techniques. The Tiebei-1 well targeted shale gas deposits more than 4,500 meters below the surface, where high pressures and difficult geological conditions present significant challenges.
Sinopec’s engineering team developed specialized drilling techniques to navigate these harsh conditions. Described as “threading a needle at depths of several kilometers,” these techniques were combined with domestically developed ultra-high-pressure fracturing equipment capable of handling 175 megapascals. This allowed the creation of pathways for gas extraction at a depth where traditional technologies often fail.
Peng Jun, Chief Expert at Sinopec Zhongyuan Oilfield, stated, “Following this breakthrough, we will accelerate the commercial and development plan for the Permian shale gas in the Puguang Block. Our goal is to efficiently convert resources and transform the ‘Deep-Earth forbidden zone’ into a ‘Deep-Earth Granary.’”
In 2012, China initiated the development of the Fuling Shale Gas Field, becoming the third country after the United States and Canada to successfully develop shale gas commercially. Since then, the country has established three national shale gas demonstration zones in the Sichuan Basin, which includes eight major gas fields. Notably, in 2020, the Weirong field became China’s first deep shale gas field to exceed proven reserves of 100 billion cubic meters.
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