State-run PetroChina has completed drilling its first horizontal shale gas well, in Sichuan province in China s south-west.
PetroChina drilled 1079 metres horizontally at the Wei 201-H1 well, in the Weiyuan structure of the Sichuan basin, after sinking vertically 2823 metres, marking the country's first horizontal shale gas drilling, parent company CNPC's in-house newspaper, China Petroleum Daily, reported today.
The horizontal drilling took 34 days and was completed last week.
Petrochina, Asia's largest oil and gas producer, has yet to move to the more technically challenging part of the work - hydraulic fracturing -- to evaluate if the well has commercial gas flows, Reuters reported.
Led by its state energy majors, China is in the early stages of exploring the frontier gas resource trapped in rocks that requires US-developed hydraulic fracturing technology to extract.
The report did not mention when the appraisal work will start or if any foreign companies would be involved providing technical assistance.
In 2007, US independent Newfield Exploration agreed to jointly study with PetroChina shale gas resources in the Weiyuan area of Sichuan.
