On February 25, China National Offshore Oil Corporation announced that the Bozhong 19-6 gas field, located in the Bozhong sag in the Bohai Sea of China, had been tested and discovered to have high-quality and high-yield oil and gas flow, and confirmed that the proved geological reserves of natural gas was over 100 million cubic meters, which means there is also large gas field in eastern China! The exploration and discovery of Bozhong 19-6 condensate gas field is an important breakthrough made by the CNOOC people in carrying out the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions and directives, vigorously promoting exploration and development, and will also contribute more clean energy to the “Green Water and Green Mountain” in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Yang Hua, Secretary of Party Leadership Group and Chairman of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, said, “The Bozhong 19-6 gas field is the largest natural gas field ever discovered in the Bohai Bay Basin. This successful discovery has opened up a new prospect of natural gas exploration in oil-rich basins and implemented the new name of “oil and gas accumulation zone”. In the future, China National Offshore Oil Corporation will continue to increase its exploration efforts in order to find more oil and gas resources and make greater contributions to national energy security and the stable supply of natural gas in North China.”

Bohai Oilfield, located in the hinterland of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, is the second largest crude oil production base in China. The general view of the industry is that Bohai Bay is a typical oil-type basin. In the past 50 years, oil has been the main exploration and discovered reserves, while natural gas has been discovered occasionally, mainly in small and medium-sized gas fields. The complex tectonic framework of “bits and pieces” in the Bohai Oilfield makes it impossible to find the “natural gas” that is easy to escape, and it is even more difficult to explore large-scale natural gas reservoirs.

Natural gas is a high-quality and clean resource, and China's natural gas production base is mainly in the west. In 2010, the natural gas output in western China reached 76.385 billion cubic meters, accounting for 80.86% of the total national natural gas output, while consumption was mainly concentrated in the central and eastern regions of China, which accounted for 70% of the total national natural gas consumption. With the development of economy, the environmental problems in East China, especially in North China, have become increasingly prominent, and the demand for natural gas has been imminent.

In recent years, China National Offshore Oil Corporation has actively responded the national natural gas strategic development planning, and launched a “natural gas exploration conference war” in Bohai Oilfield. Through the joint efforts of production, learning and research, it is determined that the “oil-type basin” has the conditions to form large-scale natural gas fields in some special areas. Bozhong sag is such a special area, and it is the “main battlefield” to search for natural gas in Bohai Oilfield. After repeated argumentation, researchers finally found that Bozhong 19-6 large archean low buried hill trap group is the most favorable place for large-scale natural gas accumulation.

Since the end of 2016, the drilling of Bozhong 19-6-1 Well has attracted much attention, with a finishing drilling depth of 4,180 m and a log interpretation gas layer of 324.1 m, breaking the single well oil and gas reservoir thickness record in Bohai Oilfield. Subsequently, a number of exploration and evaluation wells were deployed in Bozhong 19-6 structure. Especially since 2018, the deployment of exploration and evaluation has been accelerated. At present, the proven geological reserves of condensate gas reservoirs have reached 100 billion cubic meters. Good production capacity reveals huge underground gas reserves.