Huaibei Coalbed Methane Project Update Anhui Province, People's Republic of China

摘要

The Huaibei coalbed methane project is located in northern Anhui Province, the People's Republic of China and it has been under active exploration by Texaco China VB since 1998. With the Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation approval, the Huaibei Coalbed Methane Contract became the first contract to be signed with the newly formed China United Coal Bed Methane and a foreign company. Although the contract area actually consists of four discreet coal basins, the initial exploration phase will focus on the Sunan and Nanping basins largely because of greater geologic control. Existing data suggests a well-developed coal sequence regionally distributed throughout each basin. Limited gas content data also appears adequate, but substantially more data would be required to fully map gas concentrations in each basin. More importantly, the overall tectonic regime of the Huaibei area is clearly more complex than most successful CBM proejcts in the United States, presenting significnat challenges for establishing areas of enhanced coal permeability. With that in mind, Texaco China BV drilled three core-test wells during the fall of 1998 to specifically measure coal thickness, gas content and in-situ coal permeability of target coal seams. Following the evalaution of the data generated from that drilling program, these wells demonstrated an adquate composite coal thickness of around 13 meters (43 feet) and an average gas content of 9-12 m3/tonne (288-385 scf/t) for the Sunan basin. The Nanping well also showed adequate coal thickness but considerable gas depletion. Coal seam permeability varied widely depending upon the well and particular coal seam, but ranged from nearly zero to 20 millidarcies. Based on these encouraging initial technical data, Texaco is currently drilling a 5-spot pilot production pattern around the initial test well in he northern Sunan basin for long-term production testing.