Total, Sinopec to Begin Drilling for Shale Gas in Xuancheng License

Total and Sinopec will go in for long term development of shale gas potential on the Xuancheng license if results of a joint study are favourable.

In March, the two parties concluded a joint study agreement relating to shale gas potential on the 4,000 km2 Xuancheng license close to Nanjing. A 2D seismic survey was carried out from October to February 2014.

A drilling campaign is scheduled for 2014 and 2015.

“If the results of this campaign are favorable, an agreement relating to the long-term development of these resources might subsequently be negotiated with Sinopec,” Total said in its annual report published Thursday. 

Earlier this week Sinopec announced it is planning to develop the Fuling shale gas field into China’s first shale gas field. The field is projected to have an annual production capacity of 10 billion cubic meters by 2017.

The Fuling shale gas field in Chongqing has reserves of 2.1 trillion cubic meters and Sinopec expects the annual capacity of Fuling shale gas field to reach 1.8 billion cubic meters by the end of 2014 and 5 billion cubic meters by 2015.

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