Strategic breakthrough in shale gas exploration in Sichuan province by Sinopec

27-Jan-14

Asia's number one refiner - China Petrochemical Corp. (Sinopec), has made a “strategic breakthrough” in shale gas exploration in Sichuan province in Southwest China. The company also had a significant advance in shale gas exploration technologies, as per a company’s official microblog at Sina.com. No details are available on the new technologies that have applied in the Sichuan project. China Petrochemical may produce as much as 550,000 cubic meters of shale gas a day from its fields in Sichuan’s Fuling. Southwest China, which includes Sichuan, and the Upper Yangtze River area account for 40% of the country’s estimated 25.08 trillion cubic meters of shale gas reserves, the world’s largest, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources. China aims to produce 6.5 bln cubic meters of shale gas by 2015 and as much as 100 bln cubic meters by 2020, from almost zero commercial output in 2013.