On October 19th, CNOOC announced that it has made another major breakthrough in exploration in the Qiongdongnan Basin in the south-eastern waters of Hainan Island and discovered China’s first deep-water gas field, Baodao 21-1, with proven geological reserves exceeding 50 billion cubic meters.
This is the biggest breakthrough in the Songnan Baodao sag in more than half a century and shows significant progress by China in accelerating deep-sea exploration.
In the field of offshore oil and gas exploration, waters with a depth of more than 300 meters are generally called deep waters, and wells with a depth of more than 3,500 meters are defined as deep wells.
The Baodao 21-1 gas field discovered this time is located in deep-water area to the south-east of Hainan Island. The maximum operating water depth exceeds 1,500 meters, and the drilling depth exceeds 5,000 meters.
It is located about 150 kilometres away from the “Shenhai No. 1” ultra-deep water gas field. The marine geological conditions are reported to be extremely complex.
The successful discovery of the Baodao 21-1 gas field not only confirms the exploration potential of the Baodao sag, but also shows that we have made important breakthroughs in deep-water exploration technology, which has important guiding significance for the exploration of similar formations.
Wu Keqiang, chief geologist of CNOOC Hainan Branch
Wu Keqiang, chief geologist of CNOOC Hainan Branch, said that with the deepening of the strata, the quality of seismic and other basic data deteriorates and the difficulty of reservoir prediction, gas-bearing analysis, and structural implementation has doubled and the difficulty of drilling has also increased significantly.
He further commented that, “the successful discovery of the Baodao 21-1 gas field not only confirms the exploration potential of the Baodao sag, but also shows that we have made important breakthroughs in deep-water exploration technology, which has important guiding significance for the exploration of similar formations.”
Related article: China’s first self-operated, ultra-deepwater gas field put into operation in Lingshui, Hainan
