On April 15, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced that all drilling operations for the development of wells of China’s first 100 billion cubic meter class self-owned deepwater large gas field, “Deepwater No. 1” (Lingxui 17-2 gas field), have been completed and production of gas will start smoothly soon. “Deep Sea No. 1” is located in the Qiongdong South Basin, 150 kilometers away from Hainan Island, and was found during explorations in 2014. The confirmed natural gas reserves are more than 100 billion cubic meters, with a maximum water depth of more than 1,500 meters and a maximum well depth of more than 4,000 meters. It is the deepest offshore deep-water gas field that China has discovered on its own to date, and the most difficult to explore and develop. The production pipeline of “Deep Sea No. 1” has already been connected to the Hainan Island submarine clean energy supply network and will provide 3 billion cubic meters of gas every year to Guangdong, Hong Kong, Hainan and other regions.

Japan JST China news, April 16, 2021