In a first for Chinese offshore shale, state-run oil giant CNOOC has announced what it claims to be a commercial discovery in the Beibu Gulf in the South China Sea with the tapping of oil and gas flows at a wildcat well. The discovery, at the Weiye 1 wildcat well, the first shale well China has ever drilled offshore, could be a game-changer for the country’s dependence on oil and gas imports, according to Chinese media . CNOOC estimates that the Beibu gulf holds some 8.76 billion barrels of shale oil in place, and Thursday’s announcement claimed that the wildcat well flowed 20 cubic meters/day of shale oil and 1,589 cubic meters/day of natural gas, which the Chinese oil giant is referring to as a commercial discovery. Speaking to the Global Times about the discovery, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, […]