China’s largest desert oil field has produced more than 26 million tonnes of oil and gas from ultra-deep reservoirs, with resources located more than 6,000 meters underground, according to China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

The Hade-Fuman oil field, on the northern edge of the Taklimakan Desert in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has become a major center for ultra-deep oil and gas production.

In a recent development, oil workers successfully retrieved core samples from a depth of 8,080 meters at the Zhentan-1 well.

The rocks, estimated to be around 500 million years old, represent the first core recovered from more than 8,000 meters in the northwestern Tarim Basin.

The samples are expected to provide geological data to support exploration of ultra-deep oil and gas resources.

"With these valuable rocks, we can analyze and evaluate the generative capacity of oil and gas below 8,000 meters, the thickness of the oil and gas reservoirs, and the maturity level of the oil and gas," said Xu Yanan, director of the project department of CNPC Tarim Oilfield Branch.

CNPC’s Tarim Oilfield has accelerated development of ultra-deep resources beneath the Taklimakan Desert. A total of 485 ultra-deep wells have been drilled at Hade-Fuman, including 133 oil wells that have each produced more than 100,000 tonnes of oil and gas.

"We have extracted 20.36 million tonnes of crude oil and 8.15 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the ultra-deep strata in the Taklamakan Desert. The oil and gas equivalent exceeds 26.86 million tonnes. The 17,000-square-kilometer expanse of sand has been transformed into a hot spot for oil and gas exploration and development," said Lu Zhongyuan, engineer of CNPC Tarim Oilfield Branch.

The Tarim Basin remains a key growth area for China’s oil and gas sector, with proven reserves exceeding 5 billion tonnes, more than half of which are in ultra-deep formations.