Shale gas into hot potato, more than ten winning enterprises are difficult to swallow

At the beginning of this year, 16 companies obtained 19 exploration rights in the second round of shale gas bidding of the Ministry of Land and Resources. However, these 19 blocks have now become "hard bones", and these companies are not easy to pick up.

On July 16, many people from the Oil and Gas Resource Strategy Research Center of the Ministry of Land and Resources revealed to reporters that the Ministry of Land and Resources convened the winning bidders of the above 19 blocks in Beijing at the end of June to understand the progress of exploration in various enterprise blocks and the actual existence. problem.

According to public information, as of June this year, except for Huadian Coal Industry Group Co., Ltd., the drilling project in the shale gas block in Fuyang, Guizhou has been started, and other successful bidders are developing exploration plans. Exploration experts believe that the first and second rounds of shale gas tendering blocks are all located in areas not registered by “three barrels of oil”. The geological data, resource conditions and infrastructure of these 19 blocks are generally poor, and there are almost no geological data to be investigated. The 16 successful bidders themselves lack experience in oil and gas exploration. In addition, the cost of exploration and development is too high. It is difficult for most of the winning bidders to obtain funds for development. Slow progress is reasonable.

There is a company to transfer the winning bidding rights

At the beginning of this year, six central enterprises, eight local enterprises and two private enterprises won the bid for 19 shale gas blocks. It has been more than half a year since the time has passed, and most enterprises have not yet made significant progress in exploration and development.

As of June this year, most of the 16 successful bidders are developing exploration implementation plans and have not entered the actual exploration stage. The National Development and Investment Corporation, Henan Yuyuan Geological Exploration Investment Co., Ltd., Jiangxi Natural Gas Quality Holdings Co., Ltd., Hunan Huasheng Energy Investment Development Co., Ltd., Shenhua Geological Exploration Co., Ltd., China Huadian Engineering (Group) ), Hunan Province Shale Gas Co., Ltd., and a few companies said they are conducting field visits.

However, there are also companies that transfer the winning bid. Chongqing Mineral Resources Development Co., Ltd. transferred the mining rights to Huaneng Power International Development Co., Ltd. in April and sold most of the shares.

According to a person from China Coal Geology Engineering Corporation, in the second round of bidding, the company won two bids, and the exploration task is very heavy. In addition, the previous experience in shale gas exploration is relatively small, and the entire geological exploration needs to be spent. A lot of time can determine the amount of data, business prospects and other important data, and other companies also have this situation.

According to the regulations, the exploration period of the 16 enterprises winning the bidding block is 3 years. The Ministry of Land and Resources should follow the progress of the exploration of the relevant blocks and impose penalties on the prospecting right holders who have not completed the promised work. At the end of June, the Ministry of Land and Resources convened the above 16 companies to hold a meeting in Beijing. According to relevant participants, the companies at the meeting reported on the progress of their exploration and development. Traditional oil and gas companies such as PetroChina also introduced relevant mining experience.

Block risk is higher

Tian Ting, an analyst at China Energy Network Research Center, believes that the geological data, resource conditions and infrastructure of these 19 blocks are generally poor. The Ministry of Land and Resources did not provide the judgment data of the block resources value, which made it difficult for the successful bidders to effectively judge the advantages and disadvantages of the blocks and the amount of resources. The production volume is difficult to predict, and the risk of enterprise investment and development is large.

None of the 16 companies have experience in traditional oil and gas development such as oil and natural gas. Two of them are private enterprises, and four are established within three months before the bidding. Most of them do not master shale gas exploration. Development technology. Tian Ting said that the above situation caused the company to transfer or seek cooperation from other companies for various reasons.

“These companies only got the shale gas mine warrants in March, and the progress is not very fast. It can only be said that it is a stable development, and geological exploration has its own laws. This is also a very normal situation.” Related to the Oil and Gas Resource Strategy Research Center of the Ministry of Land and Resources. People said.

A Sinopec exploration expert said that the geological data of the 19 blocks are unclear. The investigation will take at least half a year, and the drilling will be carried out after the geophysical exploration. This also involves road transportation equipment and design exploration plans, which are time consuming.

According to the bids of the winning bidders, 19 blocks will invest 12.8 billion yuan in exploration funds within 3 years. The average total investment per block is as high as 670 million yuan, far higher than the minimum bidding requirement (0.9 billion yuan).

Tian Ting believes that excessive commitment will affect the subsequent benefits of the company. In the current shale gas well production is generally low, geological resources can not be determined, shale gas large-scale industrialization is difficult to achieve in the short-term, the enterprise only rely on the central government 0.4 yuan / cubic meter subsidies, far from being able to hedge high amounts in the near future The exploration investment cost has enormous financial pressure for exploration and development.

Breaking the monopoly of the three major oil companies

According to the investigation and evaluation of the shale gas resources potential of the Ministry of Land and Resources, 180 favorable shale gas blocks are initially selected in China, of which 77% of the favorable block area and 80% of the resource potential area are in the existing oil and gas block.

For a long time, China's oil and gas exploration areas have been almost exclusively occupied by PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC, and the main basins are even fully covered. In many of these places, the long-term investment is very small, and no new discoveries are made and no work is done, but they are not withdrawn. This makes it impossible for other companies to enter new explorations.

The above-mentioned Sinopec exploration experts said that the first and second batch of shale gas tendering blocks are all located in areas not registered by the three major oil companies. It is clear in the industry that the reason why it is not occupied is mainly because oil and gas storage conditions are not good. At least for conventional oil and gas, it is difficult to obtain economically developed oil and gas reserves. This is the conclusion after more than 60 years of repeated work.

Experts said that the shale gas tendering block currently drawn is not an ideal constituency for non-oil companies that are just starting a business. In the first tender, half of the block was flown, and some of the powerful private oil companies in the second tender did not participate in the bidding, probably for this reason. For shale gas, the oil and gas geological conditions and construction conditions of these blocks are generally better than those currently unregistered in the periphery of the basin. The bidding for these places as new exploration blocks will be more concerned, which will break the monopoly of the three major oil companies on the block.