To date, the daily output of shale gas in the Shale Gas Base in southern Sichuan Basin, SW China, has reached 20.11 million cubic meters, accounting for 4.2% of the daily national natural gas production. The southern Sichuan Basin has become by far the largest shale gas production base in China.

It is reported that China's shale gas reserves rank  first in the world by now. However, what we confront in exploration and exploitation of shale gas is the complex geological conditions in the domestic shale gas storage area. As the main production area, the southern Sichuan shale gas fields are distributed in Yibin, Luzhou and Neijiang. Since 2010, CNPC has developed some National Shale Gas Demonstration Zones such as Changning and Weiyuan in southern Sichuan Basin. 

With the gradual decrease of shale gas mining costs and the rapid release of its production capacity, exploitation of shale gas has entered a period of rapid growth. Especially this year, the drilling rigs, working teams and workloads in the south Sichuan base have surged up geometrically.

Up to now, the south Sichuan base has yielded 4.083 billion cubic meters of shale gas this year. And its annual output is estimated to reach 4.2 billion cubic meters, an increase by 40% over last year.