The production of China's first terrestrial shale oil demonstration zone has exceeded one million tons

On August 18, 2025, the construction of the Jimsar National Continental Shale Oil Demonstration Zone in Xinjiang achieved "five demonstration effects" in basic theory, development technology, engineering technology, management mode, and green environmental protection, and achieved fruitful results. As of the end of July, the cumulative shale oil production in the demonstration zone this year has exceeded 1 million tons, nearly 4 months earlier than last year. Jimsar Shale Oil Demonstration Zone is the first terrestrial shale oil demonstration zone in China jointly approved by the National Energy Administration and the Ministry of Natural Resources in January 2020. It shoulders the important mission of developing terrestrial shale oil and ensuring the national oil and gas strategy. The shale oil in Jimsar is buried at a depth of over 3500 meters, with a permeability of one ten thousandth of that of conventional oil reservoirs. The difficulty of extraction is like "extracting oil from a whetstone", and it has gone through a tortuous exploration and development process of "two bottoms and three highs".

Since the construction of the demonstration zone, Xinjiang Oilfield has continuously summarized its experience and lessons learned, accelerated technological iteration and upgrading, and formed a series of technical achievements and management standards in the face of challenges such as the lack of mature models for reference and efficient development. We have innovated the differential enrichment mechanism of terrestrial mixed shale oil, created a sweet spot mobility evaluation method, established a development model of "small well spacing dense cutting three-dimensional grid connection", created an integrated guiding technology for geological engineering of thin oil layers, and innovated the characteristic engineering technology of "optimized drilling of secondary wellbore+efficient fracturing of dense cutting". The scientific and technological innovation achievements have generally reached the domestic leading level and some international advanced levels, achieved good economic and social benefits, led the beneficial development of shale oil in the the Junggar Basin, Tuha and Dagang oilfields, created a new path for the cost-effective development of continental shale oil, and provided technical support and a model for China's oil shale oil development.

At the same time, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has taken the lead in building the framework of China's shale oil standard system based on the exploration and development practice of Jimsar shale oil, and has led and participated in the formulation of 85 standards, laying a solid foundation for the industrial development of shale oil exploration and development in China.