The new proven reserves of the Lingshui 36-1 gas field discovered in the southeast waters of Hainan Island in my country passed the review and filing by the relevant state departments on the 7th. The proven geological reserves of natural gas exceeded 100 billion cubic meters, making it the world's first ultra-deep-water and ultra-shallow large-scale gas field.So far, our country has accumulated more than 1 trillion cubic meters of proven natural gas geological reserves in the three basins of Yinggehai, Southeast Qiongdong, and Pearl River Estuary, helping the country's energy security.

At present, ultra-shallow gas is an important oil and gas resource in deep-water areas. It generally refers to natural gas buried at a depth of less than 300 meters. Exploration and development face difficulties such as the difficulty of ultra-shallow burial and preservation, the difficulty of filling away from hydrocarbon sources, and the difficulty of drilling in loose formations.

“We launched research on the mechanism of shallow gas accumulation and the key technologies of engineering operations, and selected the Lingshui 36-1 block, located in the southern part of the central depression of the southeast basin of Hainan Island with an average operating depth of 1,500 meters, as the exploration target.“Xu Changgui, chief geologist of CNOOC, said that the exploration practice of the Lingshui 36-1 gas field has revealed the possibility of changing from ”disaster gas" that affects the safety of drilling and completion operations to clean energy with development value, which is of guiding significance for resource exploration and development under similar sea conditions.The successful exploration of this gas field has further improved the technical system for the exploration and development of deep-water complex oil and gas resources independently established by our country, and verified its advanced nature and reliability.

Increasing oil and gas exploration is of great significance to ensure national energy security.The 2024 work promotion meeting held by the National Energy Administration to vigorously increase the intensity of oil and gas exploration and development emphasized that it is necessary to focus on key basins, increase the intensity of capital and workload investment, strengthen scientific and technological research, focus on three-dimensional exploration, large-scale and efficient production, and accelerate the establishment of oil and gas exploration and development bases.It is necessary to take scientific and technological innovation as the lead, continue to carry out the four major fields of ”two deep, one non-one old", and accelerate the breakthrough of key theoretical and technical problems in the efficient development of 10,000-meter-deep, 10,000-meter-deep, nano-scale unconventional and old oil and gas fields.

Insiders in the industry said that the oil and gas industry should strengthen the leadership of scientific and technological innovation and forge a new “weapon” for increasing oil and gas storage and production.The traditional oil and gas field focuses on improving the recovery rate in accordance with the stock, incrementally focusing on unconventional, deep and deep waters, strengthening the research and development of conventional oil and gas and unconventional oil and gas exploration and development technologies, strengthening on-site pilot experimental research, and breaking through the technical and economic barriers of large-scale production as soon as possible.

Reprinted from China Petroleum News Center.