Oil and Gas Resources in China: A Roadmap to 2050

　　Oil and gas resources are the important strategic resources directly concerned with socioeconomic development and national energy security. It is inevitable for China to ensure continuous supply of oil and gas resources for modernization drive. Since China became a net importer for oil in 1993, its crude oil consumption has been increasing by 5.77% annually and China has become the second largest oil consumption country in the world, under the economic globalization, the participating countries compete and share the global oil and gas resources by importing oil and gas to cover the shortage of oil and gas, which has been greatly promoting our national economic development. But the strategy for oil import is limited by many circumstances, as a big power, China has to adhere to the principle of giving priority to development of the domestic oil and gas resources to maintain and increase its self-sufficiency rate as the economic growth so as to maintain independence in terms of politics and diplomacy and safeguard national interests, based on which, we should further exploit overseas market of oil and gas resources to take opportunity to import the oil and gas from overseas to protect domestic oil and gas resources and maintain high speed growth of national economy and maximize the national interests. 

　　From the above explanation of the situation and environment of the oil and gas resources in face of China, we have to stick to the energy strategy principle of“giving priority to exploration and development of domestic resources, rational importing oil and gas according to market rule, trying to build energy saving society and developing renewable clean energy” for the several decades in future, which is also the program to guide the technological development in terms of oil and gas resources. Thereby, given the special geologic background in China and the forefront of the global technological development in terms of oil and gas resources, the strategic roadmap for our national oil and gas resource development technology is formulated.

　　Near term (about 2025), to improve the theoretical system for the basin formation and evolution as well as oil and gas deposit and establish the theory on marine facies carbonate rock oil and gas deposits preliminarily, with focus on development of the geophysical exploration technology on complex topography, and create the theory and technology for oil and gas exploration and development in Mesozoic carbonate rock layer system and enhance the exploration efficiency of carbonate rock layer system; develop high-resolution seismic work and explanation technology, further research on the forming mechanism of the hydrocarbon reservoir in low permeability, fissure and unconventional reservoir beds and improve the exploration precision of the high quality reservoir space; make a research of the distribution mechanism of the remaining oil, develop the bio-technology for oil production, adopt rational secondary recovery and tertiary recovery technology, enhance oil recovery, introduce and develop the deep drilling equipment, carry on exploration of the oil and gas in deep layer, deep sea, and semi-deep sea, research the corresponding exploration technology, confirm the existence of the methane hydrate deposit in sea area and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau permafrost zone in China, research the mechanism and environment of their formation and conservation, analyze the drilling and gas desorption technology applicable to our coalbed gas reservoir; explore the high efficient refining method for asphalite and oil shale, expand overseas exploration and development scope, pay attention to the cooperation in terms of the international oil and gas exploration in Arctic Ocean Circle. 

　　Medium term (about 2035), to grasp the genetic type of hydrocarbon and oil and gas distribution regularity of the petroliferous basin in substance in China, establish the perfect forming theory on basin, hydrocarbon and reservoir in deep water and ultra-deep basin by and large, make a breakthrough in deep layer and ultra-deep layer oil and gas drilling and development technologies, greatly enhance the oil and gas recovery efficiency by leaps and bounds, focus on the exploration and development technologies for unconventional natural gas reservoir (such as shale gas, non-biological methane gas, deep layer natural gas etc.), develop the independent technology for oil and gas exploration and development in deep sea and semi-deep sea, introduce, improve and explore the technology applicable to our national geological conditions for exploration and development of the methane hydrate deposit, improve the deep layer drilling and exploration technology, enhance the deep layer oil and gas exploration performance and efficiency and participate in the oil and gas exploration and development in Arctic Ocean Circle and other common regions in the world.

　　Long term (about 2050), to carry on the oil and gas exploration and development of the deep water to ultra-deep water basin, greatly enhance the deep layer oil and gas exploration performance and recovery efficiency, participate in the oil and gas exploration and development of the Arctic Ocean Circle and other common regions. Complete the exploration and development technology system of the methane hydrate in surrounding sea area by and large, establish a series of natural gas exploration and development technologies applicable to complex geological conditions and the deep drilling and production technology suitable to the geological characteristic of the basins in China, research the technologies for reformation of the oil and gas field reservoirs having been subjected to oil and gas development for three times and the technologies for Re-aggregation of the oil and gas, thereof, establish a series of microbial enhanced oil recovery technologies.

　　According to the arrangement of the academic disciplines of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the development trend in future, the leading scientific research orientations in oil and gas resources in future: continentalization, drift, matching and reformation and their restraint on our marine facies oil and gas resources in China’s mainland; research on the oil and gas resources in Pre-Cenozoic marine facies relict basin; impact of the global climate evolution on hydrocarbon source rock since Mesozoic-Cenozoic; interaction between the basin deep fluid and rock together with the high quality reservoir forming mechanism; geophysical response characteristic and high precision forecasting technique of oil and gas reservoir; technology to enhance oil recovery; high density, wireless transmission earthquake acquisition system based on MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) sensor; mass data processing and large scale hydrocarbon reservoir numerical simulation concurrent computing.