South China Sea discovery announced

China

BEIJING, May 18, 2017 – China on Thursday reported a major gas hydrate find in the offshore Shenhu area in water depths of 1,266 metres.

The Pearl River Mouth basin discovery was made using the Bluewhale 1 semi-submersible rig, the largest of its kind in the world, which spudded the discovery well on March 28. Drilled down to 277 metres, the well flowed 113,200 cubic metres during a May 10-17 testing period.

Drilling was overseen by the Ministry of Land and Resources’ Geological Survey Administration, which called in the help of CIMC Raffles entity Blue Whale Offshore Engineering and China Petroleum Offshore Engineering.

According to the parties involved, the mentioned area in the South China Sea could hold 513 billion boe of in-place hydrate gas resources.