The Ministry of Land and Resources has confirmed that Sichuan Province's Puguang Gas Field is now officially China's second largest, with its verified reserves extending to 356.072 billion cubic meters.

Puguang is the first large-scale gas field discovered in China's marine strata, experts revealed, with all gas fields found in past decades lying solely on the continental strata.

Vice Manager of the Southern Exploration and Production Company, an affiliate of the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation Ma Yongsheng, said the field, lying in Xuanhan County in the northeast of Sichuan Province, had yet to reveal its true potential as he labeled Puguang's total reserves "gigantic."

"Our company has so far drilled more than 20 wells in the field with none of them falling through, which is uncommon," Ma was quoted by CCTV as saying.

Liu Guangding, researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geology and Geophysics, hailed the Puguang Gas Field as a technological milestone for China's oil and gas exploration.

Addressing China's previous reliance on gas fields in the continental strata, Liu highlighted that "the previously neglected marine strata have far greater oil and gas reserves."

Liu projected that China's vast marine strata would yield more gas fields, in areas like the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Ordos in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the Sichuan Basin.

"Around 70 to 80 percent of China's oil and natural gas resources remain undetected," Liu said. "The new oil and gas fields in the marine strata will greatly ease China's shortage of oil and natural gas."

Ninety percent of the world's verified oil and gas reserves lie within marine strata and with China possessing 4.5 million square kilometers thereof, or half of its total land area, Liu's predictions could well be proved right.

China's largest gas field, the Sulige Gas Field in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region that entered production in 2006, possesses verified reserves of 533.6 billion cubic meters.

(China Daily March 19, 2007)