The cumulative output of shale oil from Changqing Oilfield, China's largest shale oil production base, has hit a milestone of over 20 million tons, indicating that China's shale oil exploration has entered a new stage focusing on scale production and efficiency orientation, said the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) on Sunday.
Shale oil refers to unconventional petroleum resources produced in shale formations. It is an important replacement for long-term stable crude oil production, but faces extreme difficulty in extraction.
The Ordos Basin, where Changqing Oilfield is located, has proven shale oil reserves exceeding 1 billion tons. Since the beginning of this year, the oilfield has accelerated shale oil production, adding 144 horizontal wells and achieving a daily output of over 10,000 tons, setting a new historical record. "We are going to explore and extract shale oil with greater effort. And we estimate that by the end of this year, the Changqing Oilfeld will produce over 3.5 million tons of shale oil, and we plan to increase this annual output to 4.5 million tons by 2030. This is just one more guarantee to ensure our country's energy security," said Liu Yicang, deputy manager of the oilfield development division of Changqing Oilfield. It took only three years for the total shale oil production to climb from 10 million tons to 20 million tons at Changqing Oilfield. Currently, the shale oil production at Changqing Oilfield accounts for more than half of China's total.
Shale oil output of China's largest oil-and-gas field exceeds 20 mln tons
