China’s largest shale gas producer Sinopec has achieved first gas at its latest discovery in the southwestern Sichuan basin — the first shale gas production in the country from a reservoir below 3500 metres.

The company said it has established an annual shale gas production capacity of 1 billion cubic metres at the Weirong field, with current daily production of 3.5 million cubic metres from reservoirs averaging 3750 metres in depth.

Tapping shale gas reserves in reservoirs beyond 3500 metres has been a high priority for Chinese oil and gas companies in the past three years due to technological advancements.

Located in Neijiang and Zigong cities in Sichuan province, the Weirong field holds 124.7 Bcm of proven reserves, which could support annual production of 1 Bcm, according to Sinopec.

The production facilities include eight drilling pads accommodating 56 wells, plus export pipelines to local residential areas.

Plans call for production to be increased to 2 Bcm by the end of this year and to 3 Bcm next year.

Deep well

The field's discovery well, Dongyesheng-1, tapped reservoirs as deep as 4200 metres and flowed 310,000 cmd of shale gas in March 2019.

Two other wells — Dingye-4 and Dingye-5 — flowed 200,000 and 160,000 cmd, respectively.

Sinopec’s largest shale gas field, Fuling, in Chongqing last year produced 6.7 Bcm of shale gas, the highest throughput since operations began in 2012.

Last year, the company built 32 gas-gathering centres and brought 104 new wells into production last year.

Since the turn of the year, Sinopec has brought on stream eight new wells, raising Fuling’s production by 500,000 cmd to 20 million cmd in order to meet peak winter demand.

The latest survey released by China's upstream watchdog, the Ministry of Natural Resources, shows the country now boasts 21.8 trillion cubic metres of technically recoverable shale gas resources, which could help underpin a production capacity of 50 Bcm per annum.

Shale

Going deep: Sinopec brings new China shale gas play on stream