China boldly searches for new oil at depths never seen before
In October last year, Chinese company CNOOC reported record oil and gas production from a field called Deep Sea #1. The field was the company's first ultra-deep project, an example of the search for new, untapped resources that lie deeper in the sea. But the Chinese aren't just focusing on ultra-deep offshore drilling. Right now, China is building a new drilling rig that should be able to drill much deeper than any other drilling rig on land.
Led by the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, the project involves several research institutes and companies. Its aim: to develop a smart drilling rig that can reach depths of 15,000 meters . “The national science and technology megaproject Deep Earth is a forward-looking strategy that aligns with global scientific frontiers while ensuring national energy and resource security,” state news agency Xinhua said, as quoted by the South China Morning Post.
Scientific frontiers aside, everything revolves around oil, gas and other mineral resources. That was the aim of a CNPC project in northwestern China's Tarim Basin, where the state oil major has experimented with drilling up to 11,000 meters deep. Drilling began in 2023.
Last year, after 279 days of drilling, the drill surpassed the 10,000 meter mark, Chinese media reported , making the well the deepest ever drilled in the country. It was also the deepest well drilled in Asia and the fastest drilled well over 10,000 meters. The well was completed in March last year.
Drilling ultra-deep wells is certainly a challenging undertaking. The deeper you go, the more the heat increases and this can interfere with the process, which is why ultra-deep drilling is not yet standard practice. However, the fact that Chinese energy companies and researchers have united on this issue is indicative and tells us that China is ready to go this far to increase its degree of energy self-sufficiency.
The Shendi Take 1 well – the one drilled by CNPC in the Tarim basin – passes through 13 layers of rock, reaching formations that are 500 million years old . The new drill that the team led by the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences is developing will make it possible to dig even deeper into the earth's crust and tap into new oil and gas. And at these depths there is a lot of it.
The Shendi Take 1 well is certainly a success. But it is not the deepest well drilled in the world. That honor goes to the Chayvo well , drilled off the coast of the Russian island of Sakhalin by a local subsidiary of Exxon, the operator of the Sakhalin-1 project.
The Chayvo well is more than 12,000 meters deep, making it 15 times longer than the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The field in which the well was drilled contains, according to estimates, 2.3 billion barrels of crude oil and 480 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
This is the ultimate reason for ultra-deep drilling: to find new hydrocarbon resources. Because the biggest energy challenge facing human civilization – as “Landman” protagonist Tommy Norris said – is whether we can find an alternative before it runs out.
There are schools of thought that claim that there is an infinite reserve of hydrocarbons in the earth's crust. While this remains debatable, it is a fact that the world's undiscovered oil and gas resources lie at depths deeper than previously considered standard. The pursuit of ultra-deep drilling is an example of adapting to the changing realities of energy supply.
China is the most obvious candidate for such research and experiments. The world's largest importer of crude oil and gas has significant local hydrocarbon reserves, but reaching them is more challenging than it is in, say, the Permian. Hence the concerted investments in ultra-deep drilling and the pursuit of “cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs as soon as possible,” even as China consolidates its dominance in wind and solar.
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new Economic Scenarios articles.
The article China boldly searches for new oil at never-before-seen depths comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-cina-cerca-nuovo-petrolio-con-grande-audacia-a-profondita-mai-viste-prima/ on Tue, 04 Feb 2025 06:15:54 +0000.