XINJIANG, 5th October, 2026 (WAM) - China's largest desert oil field has produced more than 26 million tonnes of oil and gas from reservoirs more than 6,000 meters underground, according to China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) on Monday.
Accordin to China Central Television (CCTV) report, The output was recorded at the Hade-Fuman oil field, located on the northern edge of the Taklimakan Desert in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Recently, oil workers successfully retrieved core samples from a depth of 8,080 meters from the Zhentan-1 well at the field. The rocks had remained underground for about 500 million years.
This marks the first time China has retrieved a core from more than 8,000 meters in the northwestern Tarim Basin, providing valuable geological data for exploring ultra-deep oil and gas resources.
"With these valuable rocks, we can analyze and evaluate the generative capacity of oil and gas below 8,000 meters, the thickness of the oil and gas reservoirs, and the maturity level of the oil and gas," said Xu Yanan, director of the project department of CNPC Tarim Oilfield Branch.
Over the years, the Tarim Oilfield has sped up the development of ultra-deep oil and gas resources beneath the Taklimakan Desert.
A total of 485 ultra-deep wells have been drilled at the Hade-Fuman oil field. Among them, 133 oil wells have each produced more than 100,000 tonnes of oil and gas, while 464 have each produced more than 10,000 tonnes.
The development has made the Hade-Fuman oil field China's largest desert oil field and a major base for ultra-deep oil and gas production.
"We have extracted 20.36 million tonnes of crude oil and 8.15 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the ultra-deep strata in the Taklamakan Desert. The oil and gas equivalent exceeds 26.86 million tonnes. The 17,000-square-kilometer expanse of sand has been transformed into a hot spot for oil and gas exploration and development," said Lu Zhongyuan, engineer of CNPC Tarim Oilfield Branch.
The Tarim Basin is a major potential source of growth in China's oil and gas reserves and production. Proven oil and gas reserves in the basin exceed 5 billion tonnes, with more than half found in ultra-deep formations.