Sinopec, or China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, reports that it has successfully completed drilling China’s deepest geothermal exploration well. The Fushen-1 well in Hainan was drilled to a depth of 5,200 meters.
The company says this milestone has revealed the mechanism of deep geothermal formation and enrichment in South China, the new breakthrough in the exploration of hot dry rock in terms of demographic region and depth is of great significance to enhance the large-scale development and utilization of geothermal resources in South China and aid the energy structure adjustment.
The drilling goal of Fushen-1 Well was granite dating back 250 million years ago. Exploration was launched in August 2023 and during this time Sinopec has adopted multiple innovative technologies, including the combination of dual-drive drilling and high-pressure injection.
Sinopec will next carry out extensive research and field tests at Fushen-1 Well to establish the first platform integrating research, education, and experimentation of deep geothermal in South China. Further, it will explore to formulate theoretical methods and technical systems applicable to the region and help China to achieve the ‘Dual-Carbon’ goal.
The development and application of deep geothermal has promising prospects, as a stable, reliable, green, and low-carbon renewable energy resource, it has the advantages of large reserves, wide distribution, and is environmentally friendly. According to the China’s geological surveys, the hot dry rock geothermal resources within the range of 3 kilometers to 10,000 meters underground in China’s land area are equivalent to 856 trillion tons of standard coal, and if only 2 percent of them are extracted, they can reach 2,993 times the annual energy consumption of China in 2023.
Sinopec states it is committed to become China’s leading enterprise in the development and utilization of geothermal energy. It has an accumulated geothermal heating capacity of nearly 100 million square meters with several multi-million-square-meter regional geothermal heating projects already built and in operation.