Natural gas development prospect in Changqing gas province of the Ordos Basin

At present, natural gas accounts for a low proportion in China's primary energy consumption structure and is highly dependent on foreign sources. Changqing gas province of the Ordos Basin where the PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Company (referred to as Changqing Oilfield) is located is one of China's four major natural gas production bases. It bears the important responsibility for ensuring people's livelihood and promoting the healthy development of social economy. In recent years, Changqing Oilfield actively implements national instructive spirit on vigorously promoting domestic oil and gas exploration and development strength and formulates the secondary acceleration development strategies. Its annual natural gas production in 2020 reaches 448.5×108 m3 and oil and gas equivalent exceeds 6 000×104 t, tamping its important position of Western Daqing in this industry. In order to further promote the continuous stable production and realize the goal of quality and efficiency improvement in Changqing gas province, this paper analyzes the situations and challenges of natural gas development in this gas province, prepares the development technological countermeasures and forecasts the natural gas development prospect. And the following research results are obtained. First, the natural gas exploration and development in Changqing gas province is divided into four stages and the main technologies for the development of low-permeability carbonate gas reservoirs, low-permeability sandstone gas reservoirs and tight sandstone gas reservoirs are formed. Second, the natural gas development in Changqing gas province faces six challenges, such as low reserve production degree, sharp decline of production rates and complex distribution of remaining undeveloped reserves of developed gas fields. And twenty-six development technological countermeasures are put forward correspondingly, such as well pattern thickening, extension and reserve increase, secondary production layer potential tapping and fine gas well management. Third, the development direction and goal of natural gas development in Changqing gas province is to pay equal attention to the stable production of old gas fields and the production increase of new areas and carry out conventional gas and unconventional gas research simultaneously. In conclusion, the annual natural gas production of Changqing gas province will maintain a sound momentum of steady growth and will exceed 500×108 m3 at the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan and maintain at a stable level for a long term, which is conducive to the optimization of domestic energy consumption structure and realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. © 2021, Natural Gas Industry Journal Agency. All right reserved.