The long march of the Chinese giant oilfields

A new study was recently accepted for publication in the journal Petroleum Development and Exploration. The article deals with the giant oilfields of China and their future production and how it will affect Chinas future oil supply.

Abstract:
Over 70% of China’s domestic oil production is obtained from nine giant oilfields. Understanding the behaviour of these fields is essential to both domestic oil production and future Chinese oil imports. This study utilizes decline curves and depletion rate analysis to create some future production outlooks for the Chinese giants. Based on our study, we can only conclude that China’s future domestic oil production faces a significant challenge caused by maturing and declining giant fields. Evidence also indicates that the extensive use of water flooding and enhanced oil recovery methods may be masking increasing scarcity and may result in even steeper future decline rates than the ones currently being seen. Our results suggest that a considerable drop in oil production from the Chinese giants can be expected over the next decades.

Preprint version available from: Global Energy Systems