Project Profile

Value: Undisclosed
Location: Ordos Basin, Shaanxi Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
Production: 3.32 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year
Start-up Year: March 2007
Area: 1,690.72 square kilometres

On September 23, 1999, CNPC and Shell Exporation (China) Ltd. signed a contract on the natural gas development and production of Changbei Block, in Shaanxi Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Shell Group is the operator of the Changbei project. The contracted term of 30 years included the evaluation, development and production periods. The joint Changbei Block, part of Changqing Oilfield in the Ordos Basin, covers an area of 1,690.72 square kilometres. In March 2004, CNPC and Shell established the Changbei Joint Working Group to launch the Changbei project. In March 2005, development of the Changbei contracted block formally commenced. In 2006, well CBI-1, the first bilateral horizontal well, was drilled and put into production test as planned, yielding 1 million cubic metres of natural gas per day. In November 2006, Changbei Central Gas Processing Plant was put into a test run. In March 2007, Changbei Gas Field formally went into commercial operation and became China\'s first commercially operational onshore oil and gas cooperation project. An annual production capacity of 3 billion cubic metres of natural gas has been constructed in the field, and it is a major source for the cities of Beijing and Tianjin, and Shandong and Hebei provinces.

In 2008, after well CB14-1 was put into production, daily productivity of Changbei reached to 10 million cubic metres, hitting the 3bcm/a target capacity two years in advance. In 2009, Changbei block produced 3.32 billion cubic metres of natural gas. In August 2010, the overall development plan for Chengbei project was approved by NDRC, and the target commercial gas delivery was increased from 3 to 3.3 billion cubic metres per annum. Since its commercial production in March 2007, Chengbei project had cumulatively produced more than 11 billion cubic metres of natural gas, completed and tested 26 bilateral horizontal wells.

By the end of 2010, the average daily output per individual well was 500,000 cubic metre. 15 of these wells produced more than 1 million cubic metres each per day at the initial stage. In particular, well CB12-1 output 2.2 million cubic metres per day at the initial stage, and 1.5 million cubic metres at the end of 2010. It had cumulatively yielded 1.1 billion cubic metres since being put into production in March 2008.

Operators:

Shell Exporation (China) Ltd.: Operator with 40% interest

CNPC: 60% interest