China's largest coal seam gas field annual production capacity breaks through 4 billion cubic meters

Guangming Daily Beijing, March 16 — Reporter Zhang Yi

On March 16, China National Petroleum Corporation announced that China’s largest coalbed methane field, the Daji Gas Field operated by CNPC, has surpassed an annual production capacity of 4 billion cubic meters, accounting for more than three-quarters of the country’s total coalbed methane output. It has become an important resource for natural gas growth in China.

Coalbed methane is an unconventional natural gas resource adsorbed or free within deep underground coal seams, usually buried more than 1,500 meters deep, with broad exploration and development prospects. Research results from CNPC’s Coalbed Methane Key Laboratory show that China’s coalbed methane geological resources amount to 50 trillion cubic meters, with the Ordos Basin holding over 25 trillion cubic meters. The country’s first coalbed methane demonstration zone—the Daji Gas Field—is located in the southeastern edge of the Ordos Basin in southwestern Shanxi Province. Since the beginning of the year, CNPC’s Coalbed Methane Company has drilled 16 new wells and added a capacity of 250 million cubic meters, pushing the daily gas production of the field past 11 million cubic meters, a 32% increase year-on-year.

Compared to conventional natural gas, coalbed methane is buried deeper and has more complex geological conditions, making extraction technically challenging. CNPC’s Coalbed Methane Company continues to deepen theoretical innovations in exploration and development, establishing a comprehensive understanding of coalbed methane accumulation, and accurately revealing the dual-phase existence law of gas—adsorbed and free—in deep coal seams. With technological innovation as the engine, efforts are being made to accelerate and improve coalbed methane development, successfully developing key core technologies that strongly support large-scale, efficient development. In 2019, the first Daji coalbed methane well, Daji 3-7, achieved industrial gas flow. In December 2021, Jishen 6-7 well’s daily output exceeded 100,000 cubic meters, becoming China’s first high-efficiency development breakthrough well for coalbed methane. From 2023 to 2025, the Daji Gas Field will achieve rapid, stepwise growth in coalbed methane production within just three years, continuing to lead China’s coalbed methane industry development. Currently, the second phase capacity construction project of the Daji Gas Field is progressing steadily, and once completed, it will add an additional 1.5 billion cubic meters of annual capacity.

Guangming Daily (March 17, 2026, Page 10)

Source: Guangming Online — Guangming Daily