Since China obtains its WTO membership, there will be more and more opportunities for foreign oil companies to do business in China. And the active merging and acquisitions of the oil giants in the world in recent years also provide more opportunities for Chinese oil companies to expand their overseas oil operations. It is very important for us to have a full understanding of the risky features of oil & gas exploration and development activities, and communications between foreign oil companies and Chinese ones.
For a successful oil/gas E&P project, a sound resources assessment and risk evaluation is the basis. And the key of resources assessment is to establish a dynamic geology-economy model which involves tectonic basin analysis and simulation, hydrocarbon system studies, fair play evaluation, play fairways identification, prospect screening and risk analysis.
Two Tarim case studies are presented: one risk exploration evaluation in the frontier region and one feasibility study of gas fields development in an immature region.
Based on the joint studies between CNPC and ExxonMobil, and CNPC and Shell, it is estimated that the OGIP in Kuche and northern Tarim basin is 275-395 bcm among which OGIP in Kela2 gas field is 205-280 bcm with the mostly value of 246.8 bcm. This proves a sound resources base for the commercial development of the “West-East Pipeline” project.