China's First Shale Oil Hydraulic Fracturing Test Site Established

TapTechNews June 20th - The 2 million tons shale oil development demonstration base in China, Qingcheng Oilfield, has now completed the on-site coring work of 2 inspection wells and the collection and collation of basic core data and various supporting test data, indicating that China's first shale oil hydraulic fracturing test site has been officially established. The establishment of the test site helps to improve the extraction efficiency of shale oil resources in China.

TapTechNews has learned that shale oil refers to the oil existing in shale strata. Due to its storage in very small particles, its fluidity is poor and it needs to be extracted by thermal or chemical methods. It is usually extracted using the horizontal well and segmented fracturing technologies:

The horizontal drilling method collects shale oil by drilling horizontal wells underground and forming a certain angle between the wellbore and the shale layer;

The hydraulic fracturing method exploits shale oil by injecting a large amount of a mixture of water, chemicals and sand underground and fracturing the rock layer through high pressure.

It is introduced that the Ordos Basin where the Changqing Oilfield is located is rich in shale oil resources. Among them, the Qingcheng Oilfield has proven geological reserves of more than 1 billion tons of shale oil, which is the largest shale oil field with proven reserves in China at present. Due to the overall characteristics of thin layers and strong heterogeneity in this area, and the reservoir is dense, resulting in extremely difficult development.

In order to improve the single-well production and economic benefits of horizontal wells, PetroChina has deployed the construction project of the first domestic hydraulic fracturing test site in Changqing Oilfield in 2021. The shale oil development research team of Changqing Oilfield has gone through three and a half years of construction, on-site drilling, fracturing, coring, and supporting 10 items and 15 tests. The longest coring section of a single well is 361.8 meters, breaking the longest coring record of a single Changqing shale oil horizontal well.