In recent years, the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council of China have successively issued a series of documents, including the reform of the oil and gas system, the reform of the equity fund system, and the reform of the mining rights transfer system, according to which the Ministry of Natural Resources has continuously promoted the reform of oil and gas mining rights management. The significant achievements after implementing reform measures in the new era are summarized, such as opening up the oil and gas exploration and production market, implementing mining rights competitive transfer, and deepening the reform of “optimizing the business environment”, as well as the challenges faced by the current reform work in the transfer, approval, and supervision of mining rights. Furthermore, some opinions and suggestions are provided, including expanding the source of oil and gas blocks, deepening the management mode, establishing a management system in accordance with geological understanding, and promoting comprehensive supervision, so as to further improve the mining right competitive transfer, build scientific mining rights relinquishment system, deepen the reform of “optimizing the business environment” and approval system, enhance the supervision of oil and gas mining rights, accelerate the formation of the new oil and gas exploration and production system dominated by state-owned business and supplemented by other economy sectors, and ensure national energy security.

In order to promote the orderly connection between oil and gas exploration rights and mining rights, and to address long-standing issues, the Ministry of Natural Resources issued the “Opinions of the Ministry of Natural Resources on several issues concerning promoting the reform of mineral resources management (for trial implementation)” in December 2019, in which the concept of the integrated oil and gas exploration and production was first proposed. By considering the characteristics of oil and gas resources exploration and development, the integrated oil and gas exploration and production system enables to preliminarily address the legality of acquiring oil and gas during the exploration stage, which aligns with the laws governing oil and gas exploration and development, and helps stimulate vitality and promote the upstream oil and gas exploration and development. However, there are still multiple issues to be clarified. Based on a review of data and information of exploitable blocks, and supported by investigation and research, the implementation status of the integrated oil and gas exploration and production system is summarized and analyzed, which indicates that there are problems at the operational level, such as the need for further standardization in the management, a lack of alignment with the current system, and an inadequate enforcement of supervisory responsibilities. In view of this, it is proposed to standardize the integrated system from two aspects of the reporting period of the exploitable resources and the issuance of receipts for exploitable oil and gas resources. The connection between the integrated system and relevant administrative licensing systems should be improved at two levels of mining rights approval and two-certificate management. The supervisory system for the integrated system should be further improved and the revision of relevant legal and regulatory provisions should be accelerated. Furthermore, by combing with the current development situation in the oil and gas industry, the concept of a unified management of the integrated oil and gas exploration and production, namely the “one-certificate approach”, is put forward.

In recent years, the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council of China have attached great importance to the reform of the administrative approval system, according to which the Ministry of Natural Resources has continuously promoted the reform of the approval and registration system for oil and gas mining rights. The approval and registration system for oil and gas mining rights since 1998 are reviewed. After investigation and research, the reform process of the approval and registration system for oil and gas mining rights is divided into three stages according to the characteristics of reform in various periods. The achievements of the reform and practice of the approval and registration system for oil and gas mining rights are summarized: (1) The vitality of oil and gas upstream markets has been stimulated by promoting the transformation of government functions; (2) The business environment has been improved by streamlining approval procedures; (3) The efficiency of the approval registration system has been improved by introducing “internet+”; (4) The exploration and development of oil and gas resources have been promoted by perfecting the system. In view of the current new situation, the reform of the approval and registration system for oil and gas mining rights still faces new challenges. Finally, some suggestions are proposed: (1) Further transform government functions to promote the alignment of goals between companies and government; (2) Transform management concepts to promote whole lifecycle management mode; (3) Continue to improve the approval mode of “internet+” to achieve the interoperability; (4) Optimize and improve mining rights management system to promote the increase of oil and gas reserves and production.

In recent years, the reform of national oil and gas market system has continuously been deepened, and competitive transfer has become the main method to acquire new exploration rights. Since the implementation of the “Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Promotion of Mineral Resources Management Reform (Trial)” (Natural Resources Regulation (2019) No. 7 ), the government has listed and transferred 66 oil and gas exploration rights for 14 rounds, with an area of 4.19×10⁴km² and a total transaction price of 9.316 billion RMB. Based on the review of the reform process of national mineral resources management, the characteristics of the reform of exploration rights transfer system in different stages, the innovative measures of oil and gas enterprises to actively participate in the reform, and the exploration practice in the competitive transferred blocks are systematically studied. The results show that: (1) The reform of exploration rights transfer system is divided into three stages, i.e., pilot oil and gas reform, issuance of competitive transfer policy, and full implementation of competitive transfer, showing specified characteristics in each stage. (2) In order to actively respond to the fierce competition, PetroChina and other enterprises have innovated management measures, established rapid response mechanism and management system for the competitive transfer, and formed a set of assessment methods and technical processes for evaluating the block value. (3) Some good results have been achieved in the exploration practice in the transferred blocks. However, except for capacity construction in Wensu block by Zhongman Petroleum, the overall oil and gas discovery is few, and most of the blocks have been withdrawn. The competitive transfer of oil and gas exploration rights has played an important role in promoting exploration investment of enterprises and ensuring national energy security, initially forming diversified oil and gas market. In order to realize the high-efficiency utilization of resources, and truly realize the win-win situation of ensuring national energy security and effectively cultivating healthy competition in oil and gas exploration rights market, several suggestions are put forward, including further improving the competitive transfer management system, establishing a national energy security base, and conducting post-evaluation of the transferred blocks.

According to the requirements of deepening the reform of oil and gas system, a more stringent exploration rights withdrawal mechanism has been implemented in China since May 2020, which changed from a reduction/withdrawal according to the proportion of insufficient investment to a compulsory withdrawal/reduction upon expiration of exploration rights. In order to adapt to the new policy, PetroChina timely adjusted its management philosophy and actively introduced new measures to achieve the renewal and orderly reduction of the first-round exploration rights upon expiration. Based on the practice of orderly reduction/withdrawal of exploration rights in more than three years, the main management measures of PetroChina, the thoughts on the optimization design of the national exploration rights reduction/withdrawal system, and the design thoughts of the evaluation system supporting the decision-making of exploration rights reduction/withdrawal management are mainly discussed. In terms of the management of the exploration rights area withdrawal/reduction, two main measures are proposed: (1) Implement multi-business linkage and integration mechanism to accelerate the pace of pursuing exploration and discovery before the expiration of exploration rights; (2) Strengthen the organization, management and review of the preparation of reduction/withdrawal plans to fully ensure a solid foundation of high-quality resources for the exploration and development. In addition, the direction for further optimization of the national exploration rights withdrawal/reduction system is analyzed and two suggestions are proposed as follows: (1) Further increase the targeted incentives for exploration rights blocks obtaining new discoveries, and significantly reduce or even exempt the area reduction in these blocks; (2) Under the specified circumstances, provide certain institutional preferential policies to market entities undertaking the duty of national energy supply guarantee. In view of the exploration rights evaluation system, it is innovatively proposed that the design of evaluation system of exploration rights blocks should start from five aspects of recoverability, resource conditions, hydrocarbon accumulation conditions, economy, and other conditions to comprehensively and finely understand the value of exploration rights blocks, so as to support the subsequent decision-making of exploration rights reduction/withdrawal management of enterprises and provide certain reference for the government to analyze and determine the value of exploration rights blocks.

In order to further improve the national oil and gas mining rights management system, new measures and innovative practices in line with the reform of national oil and gas system since the restructuring of Sinopec are systematically summarized. Furthermore, problems in the management of oil and gas mining rights are analyzed and the targeted suggestions are proposed. By analyzing the changes in exploration area of Sinopec in three stages, i.e., “application first, registration according to law”, “reduction of exploration rights area in proportion to insufficient investment”, and “mandatory reduction speculated in Document No. 7”, the innovative practices are summarized, including strengthening the nationwide strategic selection of exploration areas and actively acquiring new mining rights, strengthening the linkage between mining rights and reserves and internal circulation of mining rights responding to new situations, and establishing an evaluation system for acquiring new mining rights at reasonable prices. These measures have ensured a virtuous cycle of Sinopec’s petroleum exploration and development work and ushered in a new level of proven oil reserves of 2×10⁸ t in 2022. However, in mining rights management, the competitive transfer and mandatory reduction policy upon expiration of exploration rights result in the rapid reduction of exploration rights area of petroleum enterprises. A large number of mining rights blocks have been acquired by weaker enterprises, which are challenging to achieve substantial exploration progress and delay the exploration and development of mining rights blocks. As a result, it is recommended to increase the proportion of technical bidding documents in the competitive transfer process to ensure that petroleum enterprises with strong strength and responsibility obtain sufficient exploration area.

Mining rights are the “lifeline” of oil and gas field enterprises. With the continuous efforts in mining rights management, more stringent block withdrawal mechanism, and the implementation of competitive transfer by the government, the state-owned oil and gas enterprises are facing greater competitive and reform pressure. As a result, the deep understanding of the reform trend of oil and gas mining rights management and a detailed analysis of the existing problems and challenges are of great significance for reform and management, leveraging their own advantages, and achieving high-quality development of state-owned oil and gas enterprises. On the basis of systematically summarizing the exploration history and the evolution of mining rights, the challenges and situation faced by mining rights management are analyzed, and the practice of initiatively adapting to mining rights reform and innovating management of Tarim Oilfield is demonstrated in detail. By using measures such as establishing regulations and systems, linking mining rights with exploration and development activities, finely conducting basin evaluation, and enhancing information construction, the plans for the renewal/relinquishment of mining rights upon expiration have been prepared and the strategic research on competitive transfer of mining rights has been conducted, which support to effectively stimulate stock mining rights, actively acquire new mining rights, and form a new system of mining rights management which is characterized by “evidence-based farm in, orderly withdrawal, and standardized management”.Finally, based on the practice of mining rights management, three suggestions are put forward, including encouraging exploration and discovery of the mining rights renewal policy, policy support in areas with proven reserves concentrated, and improving the coordination and management of mining rights and land use policy, so as to better support the development of domestic oil and gas business and ensure national energy security.

In recent years, associated with the deepening of the reform of oil and gas resource system in China, the pressure of external competition and internal circulation of mining rights has gradually increased and the foundation for the survival and development of oil fields is facing great challenges. Therefore, the deep study of the new mining rights and reserves policy and the detailed analysis of the problems in mining rights and reserves management are of great significance for accelerating the discovery and capacity construction of oil fields, as well as transferring from exploration rights to mining rights. In view of the problems in mining rights and reserves management, Tarim Oilfield Company has initiatively adapted to the reform, innovated management practice, and formed a management mechanism of joint deployment of mining rights and reserves and “two-most and quality promising” for preparing critical documents, which support to accelerate the oil and gas discovery and capacity construction, standardize mining rights and reserves management, improve the quality and speed of preparing critical documents, and achieve the transfer from exploration rights to mining rights with high quality and efficiency, ensuring the oil and gas energy supply and reducing the burden on government departments.

Associated with the increasing proven degree of shallow to medium-shallow oil and gas resources, the potential of reserve increase is decreasing year by year. Therefore, increasing the petroleum exploration efforts in deep to ultra-deep formations is of great strategic significance in alleviating the pressure of insufficient annual new addition proven oil and gas reserves and ensuring national energy security. In order to ensure the full utilization of resources, promote the discovery of deep to ultra-deep oil and gas resources, and effectively coordinate resources as a whole, some optimization suggestions on the management of deep to ultra-deep mining rights are proposed. There are some issues in the management of deep to ultra-deep mining rights, for example, the period of exploration and production integration is too short, which is insufficient to transfer from exploration to production, the newly transferring deep to ultra-deep mining rights have a small scope, which is not favorable for petroleum exploration, and the overlapping exploration rights lead to duplicate investment in scientific research funds. By systematically summarizing the current exploration and development situation and potential of deep to ultra-deep oil and gas resources, issues in deep to ultra-deep mining rights management are analyzed in detail and targeted solutions are proposed as follows: (1) Renew for another 8-10 years of exploration and production integration upon expiration to ensure that oilfield companies have sufficient time to transfer from exploration to production; (2) Rationally set the size of the transfer mining rights and the renewal and relinquishment/reduction methods, encourage mineral rights holders to increase investment in new blocks, and promote the discovery of oil and gas resources; (3) Establish a special joint research team, link up the equipment, material and components, manufacturing, and application industry chain of petroleum exploration and production in deep to ultra-deep formations, so as to optimize resource investment and improve the overall efficiency of strategic resources in China. In summary, strengthening resource coordination and optimizing mining rights management policies will provide strong guarantees for high-quality and sustainable development of petroleum exploration and development in deep to ultra-deep formations in China.

In order to achieve the “oil exploration in the deep subsag” in Qikou Sag and find a new field for increasing reserves and production, Well Haitan 1 has been deployed in the deep subsag in Binhai Slope in Qikou Sag and a major breakthrough has been made. Based on the drilling results, the detailed analysis on the control mechanism of sand body development, reservoir characteristics, hydrocarbon generation conditions and hydrocarbon accumulation pattern in Dongying Formation in the deep subsag area in Binhai Slope is conducted. The study results show that: (1) The gravity flow sand body supplied by the north Yanshan provenance was developed in the third member of Dongying Formation (Dong 3 member) in the deep subsag area in Binhai Slope, showing good reservoir physical property; (2) The self-generation and self-storage oil and gas bearing system was discovered in Dong 3 member for the first time, breaking through the previous understanding of hydrocarbon migration through faults and “lower source rock and upper reservoir”; (3) The hydrocarbon accumulation pattern of “long distance sand transportation, near source hydrocarbon charging, coupling of source rock and reservoir, and contiguous oil bearing” in Dong 3 member in the deep subsag area has been established; (4) In addition, shale oil in Dong 3 member in the deep subsag area shows huge resource potential. The successful drilling of Well Haitan 1 supports to find a new field in the eastern mature oilfields and provides favorable reference for “oil exploration in the deep subsag”.

Ordos Basin and its surrounding basins such as Hetao, Yinchuan, Liupanshan, and Weihe are characterized by coexistence of multiple types of resources in one basin, and they have prominent resource advantages in China’s large onshore basins. However, the degree of resource exploration is low, and there are a large number of mining rights blank zones, which are the major targets for favorable area screening and mining rights and resource space expansion of oil companies in the future. After analyzing new discoveries, summarizing new geological understanding, and correlating hydrocarbon accumulation conditions and resource potential in mining rights blank zones with the adjacent exploration areas, the study results indicate that: (1) The Upper Paleozoic coal seams and dark mudstone have a large thickness and high hydrocarbon generation intensity, and the structural settings are stable in Wanzhen area in the middle section of the eastern basin margin, showing exploration potential of tight gas and deep coalbed methane in the Upper Paleozoic. (2) The Carboniferous-Permian coal seams have a large residual thickness and moderate burial depth in Hangjinqi and Dongsheng areas in the northern basin margin, which are favorable areas for coalbed methane and coal chemical industry. (3) The continental shelf facies shale was developed in the Middle-Late Ordovician in the western basin margin, with a wide area and good hydrocarbon source conditions. Multiple platform marginal reef or fractured type oil and gas reservoirs mainly supplied by source rock in Ulalik Formation (Pingliang Formation) have been discovered. Based on the study of preservation conditions, it is believed that Shigouyi syncline and Taole fault terrace zone in the western basin margin are favorable areas for discovering the Lower Paleozoic carbonate and marine shale oil and gas reservoirs. (4) Among the surrounding basins, Linhe Depression in Hetao Basin is the most favorable exploration area. Two sets of high-quality source rocks were deposited in the Lower Cretaceous Guyang Formation and the Oligocene Linhe Formation in most areas in Linhe Depression, with strong hydrocarbon generation potential. Surrounding the main hydrocarbon generation Naoxi sub-sag, multiple sets of deep strike slip faults were developed in the southeast fault terrace zone, showing good connection to source rock. The high-efficiency hydrocarbon accumulation mode has been confirmed. (5) The Triassic and Jurassic source rocks were developed in Liupanshan Basin with good hydrocarbon generation conditions similar to those in Ordos Basin. The deep formations in the basin are worthy of further exploration. (6) The saline lake facies source rock in Qingshuiying Formation and oil-bearing structures were proved by wells in Yinchuan Basin. The structural belt in the peripheral mature hydrocarbon generating sag in the northern basin is a favorable orientation for exploration. (7) Weihe Basin and Huhe Depression in Hetao Basin are located in economically developed areas, and abundant shows of water soluble helium gas, geothermal energy, and biogenic gas have been penetrated by drilling activities. The oil and gas co associated resources in these areas are complementary to conventional oil and gas exploration, and the in-situ transformation and comprehensive utilization of resources can be achieved. After study, it is suggested that 10 new mining rights should be established and planned in favorable areas such as Wanzhen, Heyang, Hangjinqi-Zhungeerqi, Taole fault terrace zone, and Shigouyi syncline in Ordos Basin, Haiyuan-Guyuan Sag and the piedmont nappe structural belt in Liupanshan Basin, the southeast fault terrace zone in Linhe Depression and Huhe Depression in Hetao Basin, as well as Pingluo Sag in Yinchuan Basin. In addition, it is recommended that relevant companies should strengthen the pre evaluation and pre research in mining rights blank zones, and actively evaluate and demonstrate oil and gas potential in new blocks, so as to lay the foundation for maintaining the dynamic balance between farm-in and farm-out of mining rights and ensuring survival space of oil companies.

Along with rapid development of Satellite Earth Observation technology in recent years, remote sensing technology has become an important means of natural resources monitoring and management, and is playing an increasingly important role in oil and gas resources management. In view of the characteristics mining rights management business of CNPC, Satellite Earth Observation technology and GIS spatial analysis are combined to carry out fine identification of surface conditions and quantitative risk assessment in the exploration area, and multi-satellite collaborative observation and time-series change detection are combined to conduct tracking and dynamic monitoring of exploration and development history. The practice of mining rights management in multi-scenario application shows that satellite remote sensing technology enables to provide effective decision-making support for the farm in/out of mining rights, monitoring of compliant exploration and development, and surface information management and visualization in mining rights area, which fully ensure the accuracy of surface evaluation in mining rights area, significantly reduce the field survey cost of oilfield companies, and scientifically improve the efficiency of compliance inspections in mining rights area. Furthermore, it is proposed to establish a comprehensive multi-level coordinated monitoring network to promote the application and development of remote sensing technology in supporting oil and gas mining rights monitoring and management.

Due to the rapid accumulation and undercompaction in Hetao Basin, the section with a depth shallower than 4000-5000 m is composed of weak diagenetic rocks, which seriously affects the imaging accuracy of seismic data. In view of the exploration difficulties caused by huge-thick weak diagenetic rocks, multiple technologies have been applied in the study area, including the vibroseis excitation signal design based on the response characteristics of the target layer, multi information constrained fine near-surface modeling and full depth Q-value compensation, geodetic coordinates based near-surface zonal denoising, and plane attributes based fault interpretation, effectively improving the data quality. After the application of relevant technologies, the frequency band of the main target layer has been widened by about 10Hz,showing clear fault plane and distinct breakpoint, which meets the needs of seismic interpretation, and supports to discover two oil fields, i.e.,Jilantai and Bayan. By conducting targeted research on seismic acquisition, processing and interpretation integrated technology, key problems have been solved, such as severe absorption and attenuation of seismic waves, low signal-to-noise ratio of data, poor imaging accuracy in complex structural zones, and difficulty in reservoir prediction, which can be used to guide the exploration and construction in similar areas.

Sulige Gasfield is an example of successful tight gas development in China. However, with the progress of gas field development,the problem of water production from gas reservoir is gradually prominent. The water-bearing tight gas reservoirs are developed in the western,northeastern and southwestern parts of Sulige Gasfield, with proven gas reserves of trillions of cubic meters, and the large-scale beneficial gas development is facing great challenges. The analysis shows that the produced formation water is dominated by CaCl₂ type and metamorphic ancient sedimentary water, which is divided into three types of free water, capillary water and bound water. The formation and distribution of water-bearing tight gas reservoirs were affected by several factors, such as gas generation intensity, micro structures, reservoir heterogeneity,and fault system, which were generally developed in areas with low gas generation intensity, while gas enrichment areas were located in local positive micro structures. The evaluation results indicate that are multiple risks in the development of water-bearing tight gas reservoirs,including formation water intrusion, low gas rate of single well, low economic returns, high production cost, and HSE and management. As a result, a series of researches should be strengthened, such as sweet spot area prediction in micro structures, gas/water layer logging interpretation and identification, fine description of effective reservoir space, mixed development well pattern of vertical/deviated well + horizontal well, production measures optimization and low-cost production technology, centralized treatment of produced water and prevention of safety and environmental protection issues, and whole-process water intrusion prevention and control and risk management, so as to realize the successful development of water-bearing tight gas reservoirs.