Development prospect of natural gas industry in the Sichuan Basin in the next decade

Abstract

The Sichuan Basin is the earliest natural gas discovery and utilization area in the world, where China's modern natural gas industry started. Through nearly 7 decades of development, a natural gas industrial system with complete upstream, midstream and downstream industry chain has been established, and its natural gas production has been among the top in China for half a century. And it has played an important role in the process of improving the primary energy consumption structure and constructing a “beautiful China”. The evaluation result of national oil and gas resources in the 13th Five-Year Plan shows that the natural gas resource extent in the Sichuan Basin is 39.94 × 1012 m3, ranking the first in petroliferous basins of China. In addition, the proven rate of natural gas resource is only 15% and it is still in the early and middles stages of exploration. Therefore, the Sichuan Basin has great potential in natural gas exploration and development. The natural gas production in the Sichuan Basin in 2020 is 565 × 108 m3 (including all production enterprises of PetroChina and Sinopec in the Sichuan Basin), taking the first place in China major gas producing areas. Over the next decade, the China puts forward new development concepts from the perspective of development circumstances. The construction of Chengdu–Chongqing economic circle will be promoted and a national natural gas strategic production base with yearly gas production of 1000 × 108 m3 will be built up in the Sichuan Basin, which marks a new golden development age of natural gas industry in the Sichuan Basin. From the perspective of development potential, deep and ultra-deep marine carbonate gas reservoirs, deep shale gas and continental tight sandstone gas will be the key exploration and development fields to search for giant gas fields in the Sichuan Basin. It is recommended to strengthen core technology researches according to the thoughts of “coordinated development of marine and continental, conventional and unconventional, structural and lithologic” and relying on theoretical and technological progress. In the future, it will enter a booming development period when the quality of natural gas resources will be continuously improved and the production rate will be increased continuously. In the meantime, take advantage of the opportunities of prosperity development to break through the development bottleneck of increasingly complex work objects, incomplete pipeline network system and insufficient high end and high additional value industries. Under the situation of normalized low oil price, construct a new-type industrial system with the coordinative development of natural gas production, transportation, storage and marketing and the innovation and efficiency improvement in the whole industrial chain. It is predictable that the natural gas industry in the Sichuan Basin will start in a new peak growth period and a high-quality development period in the next decade, and its yearly natural gas production will exceed 1000 × 108 m3, and the yearly natural gas production of PetroChina Southwest Oil & Gasfield Company will reach 800 × 108 m3 in 2030. Obviously, the Sichuan Basin will be a world-class natural gas production and supply base.