State-owned PetroChina has hiked its shale gas production target significantly and now expects to produce 2.6 billion cubic meters/year next year, a senior executive was reported as saying Monday.
This is an increase from an earlier target of 1.5 billion cu m/year made in August last year.
Company Vice President Sun Longde said the bulk of PetroChina's shale gas output next year will come from its Changning and Weiyuan blocks, which will each produce 1 billion cu m/year, Xinhua news agency reported late Monday.
In addition, the company's Zhaotong block in southern Yunnan province is also expected to produce 500 million cu m in 2015, he said. The report did not say where the remainder of production will come from.
Sun was reportedly speaking at a meeting on shale gas exploration in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, according to Xinhua.
PetroChina President Wang Dongjin said last year that the company's total unconventional gas output would reach 27.8 billion cu m in 2015. This volume would include tight gas, coalbed methane and shale gas.
Wang had also said shale gas would eventually account for about a fifth of the company's total gas production.
Xinhua reported Sun as saying PetroChina's longer term forecast is for its shale gas output to reach 11 billion cu m/year by 2020.
The company currently has 10 shale gas wells in operation or under construction and this will increase to 164 next year, he added.
Local media in March reported that PetroChina had completed the preliminary development plan at the Changning-Weiyuan project, which is located in Sichuan province. The blocks, as well as Zhaotong, were established as shale gas development demonstration zones in March 2012.
The bullish forecast from PetroChina comes after rival Sinopec, or China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., last month announced significant breakthroughs at its flagship Fuling shale gas project in Chongqing, which is now expected to reach 5 billion cu m/year of production by the end of 2015, before doubling to 10 billion cu m/year by end 2017.
If these targets are met, production from both companies would more than satisfy the central government's official target for China to produce 6.5 billion cu m/year of shale gas by the end of the current 12th Five Year Plan in 2015.
The longer term plan is for production nationwide to rise to 60-100 Bcm/year by 2020. This compares with total shale gas production last year of 200 million cu m, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources in January.
