China Energy/Power Technology, Strategic Layout of Resources: News & Discussions

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North Section of China-Russia East-Route Gas Pipeline to Open on Dec. 1
XU WEI
DATE : OCT 16 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

North Section of China-Russia East-Route Gas Pipeline to Open on Dec. 1​

(Yicai Global) Oct. 16 -- The northern section of the China-Russia East-Route Gas Pipeline will officially start transporting gas from Russia on Dec. 1 after its construction completed today, guaranteeing energy supplies to northern China this winter.

The pipeline will import 5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year once it enters operation, China National Petroleum subsidiary PetroChina Pipeline, which built and managed the project, said on WeChat today.

The provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and Hebei and municipalities Tianjin and Beijing are all set to benefit from ensured energy supplies for the upcoming heating season while keeping coal-fired power and the resultant pollution to a minimum.

China's north is one of the country's most notorious regions for air pollution and has a life expectancy three years shorter than the south, according to a study published in 2017 in American scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Despite efforts to reduce smog, pollution increased in major northern regions during the first four months of this year, the environmental ministry said in May.

The world-class 5,111 kilometer pipeline runs from Heihe in Heilongjiang and spans nine provinces and municipalities, winding up in Shanghai. It is the longest natural gas pipeline in China and boasts a 1,422 millimeter diameter, X80 high-grade steel and pressures of up to 12 megapascals.

 

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Large new reserves found in Gansu oil field
By Liu Zhihua in Beijing and Ma Jingna in Lanzhou | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2019-10-28 13:50

File photo of the drill site at Longdong Oilfield in Northwest China's Gansu province. [Photo/gansu.gov.cn]

A big addition of 1 billion tons of geological reserves to the oil field in Qingcheng, Northwest China's Gansu province, will help significantly wean China off its reliance on oil imports to safeguard the country's energy security in the near future, industry people said.

PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Company, a regional branch company of China's top oil and gas producer PetroChina, announced earlier this month that it had discovered new geological reserves of 1 billion tons of oil from shale oil resources at its Qingcheng oil field in the Ordos Basin, among which 358 million had been proved.

While last year, China's crude oil production was 189 million tons, a 1.3 percent decline compared with the same period in 2017, according to an annual report by the China Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute.

The country's refined oil consumption last year was 325 million tons, up 6 percent from the previous year, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

Lin Boqiang, head of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University, said the new discovery boosts the industry's confidence in domestic oil reserve detections, which is very important for national energy security.

It also proved China is scaling up detecting and exploiting technologies for unconventional oil, and with more investments into the unconventional oil sector, as shown in the case of the Changqing oil field, the production cost of unconventional oil will be reduced very quickly, and will then largely contribute to domestic crude oil production, he said.

China is currently the world's second-largest oil consumer and largest oil importer, and in 2018, the country imported 440 million metric tons of crude oil, a year-on-year increase of 11 percent, with its foreign oil dependency ratio reaching 69.8 percent, according to China National Petroleum Corporation's Economics and Technology Research Institute.

The company also said Qingcheng oil field has been stepping up drilling wells since 2017. To date, it has completed the drilling of 216 horizontal wells, among which 100 oil wells have been put into use, with daily crude oil production reaching 1,464 tons.

The company will finish drilling 255 horizontal wells by the end the year, forming an annual crude oil production capability of 1 million tons.

By the end of 2025, annul crude oil production capability at the oil field will hit 5 million, the company said.

 

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Heilongjiang's First Open-Pit Coal Mine With 10 Million Tons-Plus Capacity Kicks Off
TANG SHIHUA
DATE : NOV 04 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

Heilongjiang's First Open-Pit Coal Mine With 10 Million Tons-Plus Capacity Kicks Off​

(Yicai Global) Nov. 4 -- The resource-rich Chinese Heilongjiang province's first open-pit colliery with an expected annual capacity of more than 10 million tons has started trial operation after a prolonged construction period of about four years.

Shenhua Guoneng Baoqing Coal Electrochemical, a unit of state-owned coal giant Shenhua Group, has completed the first phase of the CNY30 billion (USD4.3 billion) project that is laced with a power station in the county of Baoqing, Xinhua News Agency reported. The annual output is expected to be 11 million tons.

In 2017, China started reducing coal power generation by halting some plans of new coal-burning units, including the above-mentioned project in the northeastern province which has estimated reserves of nearly 10.5 billion tons of coal.

The site in Baoqing has proven reserves of 800 million tons of lignite and based on the designated capacity, it can be mined for 80 years. The first phase included two sets of 600-megawatt coal-based thermal power units and a supporting coal-to-chemical project.

The second phase will expand the capacity to 15 million tons per year, add two 1,000-MW thermal power units, and churn out humic acid and lignite wax as by-products. Once finished, the mine is expected to provide 5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year to Heilongjiang and neighboring provinces.

 

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Shale gas well in SW China sees record high output
Source: Xinhua| 2019-11-10 18:09:37|Editor: Xiang Bo

CHONGQING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A well in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality has produced more than 300 million cubic meters of shale gas after 2,231 days of use, a record high number, its developer Sinopec said Friday.

It is estimated that 300 million cubic meters of shale gas is equivalent to a year's gas consumption for a city with a population of 4.8 million.

The well is located in Fuling, China's largest shale gas field. For now, the daily output of the well remains at 65,000 cubic meters, said the company.

As of Nov. 8, Fuling shale gas field had put 421 wells into production and yielded more than 26 billion cubic meters of gas, benefiting thousands of enterprises and more than 200 million residents along the Yangtze River.

 

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China's deepest gas field officially put into production
Nov 11, 2019
CGTN

With the last development well of "Keshen 9" gas field in Xinjiang, "Kenshen 9-1" has officially begun production, meaning that the deepest onshore gas field in China has been put into full development, providing new gas source support for China's winter natural gas supply. It reaches a drilling depth of 7,671 meters and produces 550,000 cubic meters of natural gas a day, which can meet the needs of 1.6 million residents.

 

[JSCh]

Chinese workers complete world's first operation on 1,100-kV DC transmission line
Nov 16, 2019
New China TV

Putting your life on the line... literally! World's first live-wire operation on a 1,100-kV direct-current (DC) transmission line is completed in Anhui, E China by Chinese workers

 

[JSCh]

North Section of China-Russia East-Route Gas Pipeline to Open on Dec. 1
XU WEI
DATE : OCT 16 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

North Section of China-Russia East-Route Gas Pipeline to Open on Dec. 1​

(Yicai Global) Oct. 16 -- The northern section of the China-Russia East-Route Gas Pipeline will officially start transporting gas from Russia on Dec. 1 after its construction completed today, guaranteeing energy supplies to northern China this winter.

The pipeline will import 5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year once it enters operation, China National Petroleum subsidiary PetroChina Pipeline, which built and managed the project, said on WeChat today.

The provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and Hebei and municipalities Tianjin and Beijing are all set to benefit from ensured energy supplies for the upcoming heating season while keeping coal-fired power and the resultant pollution to a minimum.

China's north is one of the country's most notorious regions for air pollution and has a life expectancy three years shorter than the south, according to a study published in 2017 in American scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Despite efforts to reduce smog, pollution increased in major northern regions during the first four months of this year, the environmental ministry said in May.

The world-class 5,111 kilometer pipeline runs from Heihe in Heilongjiang and spans nine provinces and municipalities, winding up in Shanghai. It is the longest natural gas pipeline in China and boasts a 1,422 millimeter diameter, X80 high-grade steel and pressures of up to 12 megapascals.

Russia to start sending gas to China in landmark deal
Dec 1, 2019
CGTN

Across China's coal-burning northeastern provinces, pipelines are being laid, contracts are being signed and coal-fired boilers being ripped out ahead of the arrival next week of the country's first piped natural gas from Russia. Russia is set to tap a potentially enormous new natural-gas market outside Europe when its state-run Gazprom opens the 3,000 kilometer Power of Siberia pipeline and starts feeding China with blue fuel.

 

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New gas pit test in South China Sea may make country less reliant on imports: expert
Source:Global Times Published: 2019/12/1 19:28:39

The Xingwang deep-sea semi-submersible drilling platform at the Liwan 3-2 gas field in the South China Sea. Photo: Xinhua

A large natural gas field was recently tested in the South China Sea near Hainan Island, and an analyst said over the weekend that the potential production of gas will make China less reliant on energy imports.

The Yongle 8-3-1 exploration well has been successfully tested in the eastern part of the deep waters of the Qiongdongnan Basin, located southeast of the Hainan Island, according to China National Offshore Oil Corp, chinanews.com said in a report.

The company said that it obtained a high-quality natural gas flows of 1 million cubic meters, setting a new record for the testing capacity of natural gas in submerged hills and marking a major breakthrough in the exploration of deep-water gas in China.

Dong Xiucheng, director of the China Oil & Gas Center with the China University of Petroleum, said that the discovery indicates potentially large reserves, which will markedly increase domestic gas supplies and make China less reliant on imports.

"China's supply of natural gas is far smaller than demand and is heavily dependent on imports. It is necessary to develop new gas fields," Dong told the Global Times on Sunday.

China imported 77.71 million tons of natural gas from January to October, an increase of 7.9 percent year-on-year, making China the world's largest natural gas importer, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

"Natural gas is one form of carbon energy, a relatively cleaner alternative to oil and coal," said Dong, as China imports more and more oil and coal.

From January to October, China's coal imports totaled 280 million tons, up 9.6 percent on a yearly basis and crude oil imports reached 414.54 million tons, up 10.5 percent year-on-year, data from the NBS showed.

"Using clean energy is one of the most important ways to deal with climate change. China has been vigorously developing clean energy to contribute to the overall improvement of the earth's environment," Dong noted.

The newly tested well is about 180 kilometers southeast of the Hainan Island and the rig will operate at a depth of 1,831 meters.

"Deep-sea exploration is very difficult as ocean rocks and huge temperature differences are very complicated. China has made great progress in deep-sea exploration and has reached world-class levels," said Dong.

China has developed the technology to explore high-temperature and high-pressure marine gas fields, which has been exported for use in the Gulf of Mexico, the UK North Sea and gas fields in Iraq, the Xinhua News Agency reported in 2018, citing Li Zhong, a chief engineer from the China National Offshore Oil Corp.

 

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China sets up new central SOE to manage oil, gas pipelines
Source: Xinhua| 2019-12-09 16:38:24|Editor: ZX

BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday set up a new centrally-administered state-owned enterprise (SOE), the China Oil & Gas Piping Network Corporation.

The company will partly be responsible for the investment, construction and interconnection of main oil and gas pipelines to form a nationwide network, allowing to transport crude oil, refined oil and natural gas through the network, it said.

Aiming to forge an oil and gas market with effective transport through a unified pipeline network, the establishment of the central SOE is an important step forward in promoting the reform of China's oil and gas system.

By interconnecting the country's oil and gas pipelines, the company will help raise the allocation efficiency of oil and gas resources and ensure safe and stable energy supply.

 

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Southwest China province sends eastward record electricity
Source: Xinhua| 2019-12-11 18:20:48|Editor: xuxin

KUNMING, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Yunnan Province has sent a record amount of electricity to the eastern regions so far this year.

As of Sunday, the amount exceeded 140 billion kWh for the first time, representing an annual increase of 4.6 percent, according to the Yunnan subsidiary of China Southern Power Grid.

Yunnan has exceeded its annual transmission target for the west-east electricity transmission program by 4.4 kWh, it said.

The province has sent over 1 billion kWh of electricity to Hainan since June when it started transmitting power to the country's southern-most island province.

Yunnan will build more power transmission lines. It is expected to increase its maximum power transmission capacity by 25 percent to 39.15 million kilowatts by the end of 2020.

The hydropower from Yunnan accounts for over 60 percent of all the China Southern Power Grid transfers in the west-east electricity transmission program.

 

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SEPTEMBER 24, 2019 / 6:42 PM / 2 DAYS AGO
China CNOOC to start pumping at large deepsea gas field at end-2021: official - Reuters
Muyu Xu, Chen Aizhu

SANYA, China/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China’s national offshore producer CNOOC Ltd expects its major deepwater gas field Lingshui 17-2 in the South China Sea to start its first gas production at the end of 2021, a company executive said on Tuesday.

Chinese state-run energy producers are raising spending on domestic oil and gas drilling to multi-year highs this year, with a focus on cleaner-burning natural gas in a response to Beijing’s call to boost energy supply security.

The Lingshui field, with an average water depth of 1,450 meters (4,757 ft) at a distance of about 150 km (93 miles) southeast from Sanya city of Hainan province, is the first deepsea gas project operated by CNOOC and a key new field to contribute to the firm’s gas output.

Annual production of Lingshui 17-2 is estimated at 3.2 billion cubic meters (bcm), with maximum production likely to reach 3.39 bcm, the executive told reporters and analysts in Sanya, or roughly two percent of China’ total gas output.

The executive did not give a timeline on when peak output is expected to be reached.

The start-up timeline is about a year behind an earlier indication by CNOOC, but analysts said development of such a sizeable deepwater gas project can easily take four years from 2018 when Lingshui was first approved.

“We forecast first production in early 2022, because a four-year timeframe is far more realistic for a new deepwater project in an area with little existing infrastructure,” said Angus Rodger, research director for Asia-Pacific upstream business with Wood Mackenzie.

“As CNOOC’s first fully-operated deepwater project Lingshui is a key test of its capabilities and the progress of its in-house R&D in development technologies,” Rodger said.

CNOOC is building a semi-submersible production platform for the project, said the official, who declined to be named as he is not the company’s spokesman.

CNOOC is already a deepwater player in offshore Nigeria, the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, but mostly in tie-ups with seasoned global players such as Total and Exxon Mobil.

When on stream, Lingshui 17-2, first discovered in the Qiongdongnan basin in September 2014, will be the second deepsea gas producer offshore China after Liwan, also in South China Sea and which is operated by Canada’s Husky Energy.

CNOOC Zhanjiang is the state oil firm’s unit responsible for developing the offshore waters in the western part of the South China Sea including key projects such as Lingshui and Liwan.

The unit makes up about 18 percent of CNOOC’s total oil and gas output in offshore China.

While the Zhanjiang unit aims to maintain its crude oil production at 4.5 to 5 million tonnes by 2025, its natural gas output is expected to rise to 10 bcm by 2025, said the CNOOC official, without giving current output levels for comparison.

New gas production will also come from expanding development at existing fields such as Dongfang, Yuedong and Yacheng, the official said.

An annual average of 16 billion yuan ($2.25 billion) will be allocated for capital spending during the period.

Reporting by Muyu Xu in Sanya; Writing by Chen Aizhu in Singapore; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Aditya Soni and David Evans

DECEMBER 13, 2019 / 3:48 PM / A DAY AGO
China's CNOOC starts drilling at Lingshui 17-2 gas field - CCTV

BEIJING, Dec 13 (Reuters) -

* China’s national offshore producer CNOOC Ltd started to drill at its major deepwater gas field Lingshui 17-2 in the South China Sea, state television CCTV reported on Friday

* The Lingshui field, with an average water depth of 1,450 metres (0.9 mile), expects to churn out around 3 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas annually, which could meet a quarter of the demand in the southern regions of Guangdong, Hainan and Hong Kong, CCTV said

* A company executive in September forecast that the Lingshui 17-2 field could start its first gas production at the end of 2021

* CNOOC also expects to add 11 million tonnes of oil equivalent and 10 bcm of natural gas output by 2025, following the development of other deepwater projects such as Lingshui 25-1 and Lingshui 18-1 (Reporting by Muyu Xu and Shivani Singh)


China's CNOOC starts drilling at Lingshui 17-2 gas field - CCTV - Agricultural Commodities - Reuters

 

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China's natural gas output exceeds 170 bln cubic meters in 2019
Source: Xinhua| 2019-12-17 00:09:15|Editor: yan

BEIJING, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's natural gas output reached 173.3 billion cubic meters in 2019, according to the national energy work conference held in Beijing on Monday.

The country's annual output has increased by over 10 billion cubic meters for three consecutive years, the source said.

China's newly proven reserves of natural gas in 2019 reached 1.4 trillion cubic meters, up 68 percent year on year.

In 2020, China will promote gas exploration, strengthen the construction of systems for the production, supply, storage and marketing of natural gas, and improve oil recovery and other key technological innovations, said the conference.

 

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World's 1st carbon fiber UHV power line starts operation
By Wang Junwei | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2019-12-16 17:36

The world's first carbon fiber ultrahigh-voltage power transmission line goes into operation on Dec 10. [Photo/NMTV]

The world's first carbon fiber ultrahigh-voltage power transmission line, a supporting project for UHV power transmission from Xilingol League of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region to East China's Shandong province, went into operation on Dec 10, according to reports from local media NMTV.

The project can increase the power transmission capacity by 6.6 billion kilowatt-hours per year, the media said. With a total length of 14.6 kilometers, the line uses carbon fiber composite core wires which are independently developed by China.

Compared to wire with a traditional steel core, those with a carbon fiber composite core perform better in electric conductivity, are lighter in weight and have high temperature and corrosion resistance.

The operation of the Xilingol League-Shandong UHV AC power transmission and transformation project, which is one of the key projects to alleviate air pollution, will increase the coal power transmission capacity from Xilingol League, and meet the electricity needs in surrounding areas of the Bohai Sea in North China and Yangtze River Delta in East China.

 

[JSCh]

World's highest county connected to China's state grid
Source: Xinhua| 2019-12-24 18:51:39|Editor: zh

Aerial photo taken on Dec. 24, 2019 shows a view of Tsonyi County, Nagqu City, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. The world's highest county, Tsonyi, Nagqu City, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, was connected to China's state grid Tuesday, enabling a stable power supply for more than 7,000 local residents. In the county seat with an altitude of more than 5,000 meters above sea level, power workers braved a coldness of minus 20 degrees Celsius to start the equipment on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Sun Fei)

LHASA, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- The world's highest county, Tsonyi, Nagqu City, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, was connected to China's state grid Tuesday, enabling a stable power supply for more than 7,000 local residents.

In the county seat with an altitude of more than 5,000 meters above sea level, power workers braved a coldness of minus 20 degrees Celsius to start the equipment on Tuesday.

"Tsonyi relied on photovoltaic power stations to provide power for the whole county. But in bad weather such as heavy rain or snow, when sunshine was not sufficient, the whole county suffered a power outage," Jing Qi, deputy county chief of Tsonyi.

There are 10 months of long winter in Tsonyi, with the lowest temperature reaching minus 40 degrees Celsius.

Jing said the county used to adopt power rationing in winter, which disrupted daily work and life.

In March, the State Grid Tibet Power Co., Ltd. began to lay power lines towards the county, passing through a vast stretch of unpopulated Changtang National Nature Reserve.

"The power line construction is very efficient in providing Tsonyi people access to a stable power supply in winter," said the project manager Tsering Badro.

The power grid construction was completed with a government investment of 600 million yuan (around 86 million U.S. dollars). Two 110 kV and two 35 kV power transmission and transformation projects were built during the grid construction.

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[JSCh]

Large gas field discovered in northwest China
Dec 25, 2019
CGTN

A large gas field of 100 billion cubic meters was discovered in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the first one of its kind in the region, representing a major breakthrough in exploration on the western edge of the Ordos basin over the past three decades.