OREANDA-NEWS. June 27, 2013. China’s top oil exploration company has signed a deal with the country’s ministry of land resources to achieve strategic breakthroughs in oil and gas exploration in northern Tibet, reported the Oil & Gas Journal on its ogj.com website.

The report said Sinopec Southern Exploration Co. of China and the Oil and Gas Resources Research Center of Geological Survey Bureau of Ministry of Land Resources had signed an agreement on joint exploration for oil and gas in selected areas of the Lunpola basin in Nagchu (Chinese: Naqu or Nagqu) Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

The report quoted a statement issue by the two organizations as saying: “The main task of the joint exploration is to carry out strategic survey on Lunpola basin, evaluate conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources, implement seismic exploration in selected key areas, identify effective traps, drill parametric or exploration wells and strive to achieve strategic breakthroughs in oil and gas exploration.”

The report said the ministry had planned to invest 20 million yuan in the Lunpola basin on seismic surveys and parametric well drilling this year.

The report cited China’s official China Daily newspaper as having reported that China National Star Petroleum Corp. (CNSPC) had discovered the first oil field in the TAR in 1999 (OGJ Online, Aug 23, 1999). It cited the CNSPC as having estimated 10 million tonnes of probable reserves and 100-150 million tonnes of possible oil and gas reserves in the Lunpola basin in northern Tibet, 185 miles northwest of Nagqu.