Opportunities and Challenges for Sinopec to Develop Tight Oil Reservoirs

Tight oil resources are abundant in China, but they are only developed in small scale presently, understanding of the reservoir and engineering technologies are still at initial stage of development. On the basis of introducing the characteristics of tight oil reservoirs and Sinopec’s current development, the major challenges and opportunities for development of tight oil reservoirs were analyzed. It is indicated that main challenges in developing tight oil reservoir include complex geologic conditions, development technologies need to be improved, and the ways to develop tight oil reservoirs efficiently under the situation of low oil prices. Moreover, it is proposed in five aspects for developing tight oil reservoir in China, i.e. (1) identifying enrichment laws, (2) analyzing development mechanism, (3) further exploring the engineering technologies, (4) making more efforts in EOR technologies, and (5) establishing development and management modes, which will play an important part for efficient development of tight oil reservoirs, and keep national energy supply and security in China.