Proven deposits at Puguang Gas Field in Xuanhan county in the northeast of Sichuan province now amount to 356.072 billion cubic meters of gas. Examined by the Mineral Resources and Reserves Evaluation Center of the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR), Puguang Gas Field is now confirmed as the second largest of its kind in China. It is also the first time that such a large field has been found in China's marine stratum.

A marine stratum refers to a stratigraphic structure, as oppose to a continental stratum. In the course of geological development, the marine environment settled down into what is now called a marine stratum while the continental environment, including lakes, rivers and swamps, was gradually deposited into the continental layers of the earth.

Prior to this discovery, China had only found large gas fields in the continental stratum.

Currently about 90 percent of known global gas reserves are from marine stratum, and China's territory includes 4.5 million square kilometers of marine strata. Since the 1950s, China has been hunting for gas in the marine stratum. Fifty years after investigations began, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) and the China University of Petroleum cooperated to locate gas reserves. The breakthrough suggests that China is likely to discover more gas resources.

By People's Daily Online