Chinese oil workers have penetrated offshore layers of volcanic rock to gain access to deposits that were considered virtually unreachable until recently.
Sea-news.az reports that citing Reuters, that the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) released this information.
The well was drilled to a depth of over 5,000 meters in Bohai Bay off China’s northeastern coast, an inland sea that houses several of the country’s largest oil fields.
According to the report, the well is located in the central part of the bay near the Bozhong depression, which is rich in hydrocarbon reserves and is considered the largest depression in the region. During drilling, a gas-bearing layer with a thickness of over 120 meters was discovered, and the final depth of the well reached 5,770 meters.
During testing, the well yielded approximately 800,000 cubic meters of natural gas and a small volume of oil per day. CNOOC believes that this discovery opens up new opportunities for natural gas exploration within deeply buried volcanic formations beneath the seabed.
