China produced more than 200 million tons of oil equivalent (TOE) of crude oil and natural gas in 2020, and the annual output of natural gas exceeded 100 million TOE, hitting record highs, Chinese oil and gas giant PetroChina said on Friday.
Since the beginning of 2020, faced with the multiple impacts of low oil prices and COVID-19 epidemic, PetroChina has intensified its exploration and development efforts, improved quality and efficiency, and made all-out efforts to increase reserves and production.
Changqing Oilfield, China’s largest oil-and-gas field headquartered in Xi’an City, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, has produced over 60 million tons of oil equivalent of crude oil and natural gas in 2020, hitting a record high.
The annual output of shale gas had exceeded 10 billion cubic meters as of Tuesday in the Changning-Weiyuan national shale gas demonstration zone, located in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, making the zone the largest shale gas field in China.
Meanwhile, the annual oil and gas output of the Tarim Oilfield in southern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China reached 30 million tons.
“The oil and gas output exceeded 200 million tons of oil equivalent for the first time, among which that of natural gas production increased by 6 percent to 8 percent. This is the first time that natural gas output exceeded oil output, indicating that low-carbon natural gas resources exceeded heavy carbon oil resources,” said Hu Wenrui, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
PetroChina is the country’s largest oil and gas producer and supplier, with oil and gas output accounting for more than 60 percent of the national equivalent output. Every year, PetroChina has added more than 600 million tons of proved geological reserves of oil for 15 consecutive years, and more than 400 billion cubic meters of proved geological reserves of natural gas for 14 consecutive years.
Since the beginning of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2015-2020), China’s oil and natural gas production has been increasing rapidly. In 2017, it exceeded 100 billion cubic meters for the first time, and 13 integrated gas fields each with over 1 billion cubic meters were built with high efficiency. By 2020, China’s oil and natural gas production exceeded 130 billion cubic meters.
“Next PetroChina will enter a new stage of stabilizing its oil production and increasing gas production. We predict that China’s natural gas output will exceed 200 million tons in 2025, playing an important role in realizing China’s green and low-carbon transformation,” said Zou Caineng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
