SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China’s Sinopec Corp said on Tuesday it has tapped a daily flow of 30 tonnes of oil and 1,500 cubic meters of gas at a mature oilfield in east China’s Jiangsu province.
The company said the flows, from exploration well Hua-2-ce in the Jiangsu oilfield, marked a breakthrough in unlocking 1.1 billion tonnes of prospective shale oil resources in the Subei basin.
The firm will accelerate the construction of a pilot shale oil production zone in the area, Sinopec said, without giving further details.
By late 2021 China produced only 35,000 barrels per day (bpd) of shale oil – which is extracted from rock, and is more complex and expensive to produce than conventional crude – mostly in the northern Ordos basin and northwestern Jungar basin.
That equates to less than 1% of its total oil output.
But under a central government call to boost domestic energy supply security, national oil companies are making greater efforts to tap shale deposits.
(Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Editing by Jan Harvey)
