China extracts 861,400 cubic metres of natural gas from ‘flammable ice’ in South China Sea
- Volume of fuel extracted from gas hydrates is a new world record, natural resources ministry says
- Month-long trial also sets a ‘solid technical foundation for commercial exploitation’, it says
The production process, which ran from February 17 to March 18, also set two world records: one for the largest total volume extracted and another for the most produced – 287,000 cubic metres – on a single day, the Ministry of Natural Resources said on its website.
The gas was extracted from an area in the north of the disputed waterway, and from a depth of about 1,225 metres, it said.
The success of the latest trial set a “solid technical foundation for commercial exploitation”, the ministry said, adding that China was the first country in the world to exploit gas hydrates using a horizontal well-drilling technique.
Also known as flammable ice, gas hydrates are icelike solids composed mostly of methane. According to figures from the US Department of Energy, one cubic metre of gas hydrate releases 164 cubic metres of conventional natural gas once extracted.
The official Economic Daily reported in 2017 that China’s reserves of flammable ice were equivalent to about 100 billion tonnes of oil, of which 80 billion tonnes were in the South China Sea.