PetroChina, Asia’s largest producer of oil and gas, has struck a large natural gas discovery in northwest China's Xinjiang region with an initial estimated reserve exceeding 100 billion cubic meters, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported over the weekend.
This marks another breakthrough in the state oil firm’s natural gas development in the region, following a similar-sized discovery at Tarim basin in September last year.
PetroChina tapped 610,000 cubic meters of daily gas flow and 106.3 cubic meters of crude oil at exploration well Hu-1, located in an exploration zone totaling 15,000 sq. km at the southern rim of the Junggar basin, Xinhua said.
The oil and gas flows were struck at around 7,400 m below the earth’s surface.
Near the discovery, PetroChina is drilling three more exploration wells—Letan 1, Tianwan 1 and Tianan-1.
Xinjiang is among the top areas for PetroChina’s domestic E&P spending as the state energy giant has vowed to spend 150 billion yuan (US$22.90 billion) between 2018 and 2020 to boost total oil and gas output at the region to 1 million barrels per day oil equivalent.
($1 = 6.5492 Chinese yuan)
Recommended Reading
Exclusive: Halliburton's E-Fleets Lower Haynesville Completions Costs
2025-04-14 - Halliburton’s Neil Modeland, senior business technology development manager, shares insight into the company’s electrification services and efforts to minimize associated completions costs in the Haynesville Shale, in this Hart Energy Exclusive interview.
Darcy Partners Keeping Tabs with Oil, Gas’ Next Tech Startups
2025-05-20 - Darcy Partners evaluates technology that its members, particularly in the oil and gas industry, may want to put to use— from AI to a new, cool drill bits.
Plan to Convert Frac Water into Hydrogen Could Bring $5MM/Year
2025-06-18 - A group of collaborators are working to convert frac wastewater into clean hydrogen in an initiative that could lead to hydrogen sales of up to $5 million annually.
There’s Something in the Permian’s Water, and That’s a Problem
2025-05-14 - Companies big and small are figuring out how to manage the Permian Basin’s unprecedented volume of produced water.
Nabors, Corva Expand Alliance to Boost AI-Driven Innovation at Rig Sites
2025-04-13 - Nabors Drilling Technologies and Corva AI will use the RigCloud platform to provide real-time insights to crews directly at drilling sites, the companies said.