Oil and Gas Resources in China

Abstract

China has relatively abundant petroleum resources. Because of the unique geological settings, there are two noticeable features of petroleum accumulation and distribution. Firstly, both marine sequences and terrigenous sequences contained sizable petroleum resources. However, the terrigenous sequences contained the major portion of the total petroleum resources. Secondly, despite a limited number of petroliferous rich depressions and a low abundance of widely spread petroleum reservoirs, the latter have increasingly become the main target for Chinese petroleum exploration at present and for the future. Although oil and gas exploration has been carried out for almost one hundred years in China, there are plenty of remaining oil and gas resources. In addition, the exploration in many areas is still at a preliminary stage and many new exploration domains need to be investigated.