Photo: screenshot of CCTV's report

China's largest oil and gas field, Changqing Oilfield, produced 51.42 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2025, marking the fourth consecutive year its output has exceeded 50 billion cubic meters, China National Petroleum Corp said. The field's annual gas production is estimated to have accounted for about one-fifth of the country's total natural gas output, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Sunday.

Located in the Ordos Basin, Changqing Oilfield boosted gas output in 2025 through combined efforts from new and existing wells. To address declining production and reservoir pressure in mature wells, the field carried out enhancement measures at about 14,000 wells, adding 2.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas. More than 1,900 new gas wells were brought on stream, contributing more than 2.8 billion cubic meters of output during the year, CCTV reported.

Yang Yong, Party secretary of the Gas Field Development Division of PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Co, said that more than 85 percent of the gas developed at Changqing Oilfield comes from hard-to-extract tight reservoirs with low permeability, pressure and abundance.

He noted that through indigenous innovation, the field has developed original geological theories and mastered more than 30 core technologies, including 3D seismic and volumetric fracturing, unlocking previously inaccessible resources and enabling the construction in 2022 of China's first strategic gas field with annual output capacity of 50 billion cubic meters.

As the backbone of China's onshore natural gas production, Changqing Oilfield has spent more than three decades overcoming technical challenges to successfully develop 15 gas fields, including Jingbian, Yulin and Sulige. Since supplying gas to Beijing in 1997, it has produced more than 700 billion cubic meters of natural gas in total, equivalent to replacing more than 900 million tons of standard coal and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1 billion tons, CCTV reported.

Zheng Wei, deputy director of the Production and Operations Department at PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Co, said that as the heating season peaks, more than 30,000 gas wells and three gas storage facilities at Changqing are operating at full capacity, delivering more than 160 million cubic meters of natural gas per day.

He noted that the gas is transported via more than 10 national trunk pipelines, including the West-East Gas Pipeline and the Northwest China's Shaanxi Province -Beijing pipeline network, to more than 50 large and medium-sized cities across regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia, ensuring sufficient and stable supplies for downstream users.

Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Sunday that Changqing Oilfield's natural gas output exceeding 50 billion cubic meters for four consecutive years is of major significance in boosting China's natural gas self-sufficiency. 

While domestic gas demand continues to grow rapidly, the field's stable high output helps strengthen supply capacity and better meets rising demand, Lin said.

He added that natural gas, as a cleaner energy source compared with coal, plays an important role in optimizing China's energy mix and reducing emissions. The sustained production from Changqing Oilfield therefore not only supports the country's energy transition but also carries strategic importance for safeguarding national energy security and ensuring stable gas supplies for households.