Prospects and challenges of continental shale oil development in China

With the development of shale gas exploration in China, shale oil has attracted more and more attention. This investigation of shale oil exploration at home and abroad has reviewed the shale oil definition and characteristics, forming conditions, resource scale, key technology, problems and challenges with the shale oil exploration practice in the Biyang Sag. The results show that continental faulted basins in China have favorable shale oil conditions and rich resources. Technologies such as comprehensive geological evaluation, horizontal well drilling and completion, and multi-stage segmental fracturing have already been applied in China and important progress has been made in the Biyang Sag and the Jiyang Depression by using these technologies. There are three main problems in shale oil exploration and development. The first one concerns flow mechanism and reservoir evaluation. The second one is the independent research and development of some key engineering technologies such as a rotary steering system and micro-seismic fracture monitoring. The third one is the realization of economical exploration. All the problems above are the main research subjects in the future.