New China shale gas field with 146 billion cubic meters of proven reserves

SINGAPORE Sinopec Corp said on Thursday that a new shale gas field in southwest China holds nearly 146 billion cubic meters bcm of proven reserves that have been recently certified by the country's ministry of natural resources.

The Qijiang shales, part of the gas-rich Sichuan basin, are mostly buried at 3,500 meters below ground level, and are considered one of the more technologically challenging rock formations to explore and develop, Sinopec said in a statement.

It didn't give any more details, such as a timeline to develop the project or an estimate of peak output.

Under President Xi Jinping's call to increase domestic energy supply, China's national energy champions are accelerating the development of more costly, geologically challenging oil and gas resources.

Technologies like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are widely used to produce gas from shale and other tight rock formations.