China Petrochemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec, said its 9,432 meters deep oil and gas well has become operational.

Located in the Tarim Basin in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Yuejin 3-3XC is Asia's deepest oil and gas well on land, Sinopec announced late yesterday.

Sinopec started drilling at the well on May 1 and finished on Oct. 26, according to an insider from the Beijing-based firm. Its daily output will likely be 200 tons of crude oil and 50,000 cubic meters of natural gas, the person added.

The well sits outside the wetland nature reserve upstream of the Tarim River to protect the environment but turns around thousands of meters underground, the insider noted, adding that it can reach the oil and gas resources deep below the reserve, miles away from the well's location on the surface.

The industry classifies a 4,500-meter to 6,000-meter oil and gas well as deep, a 6,000-meter to 9,000-meter well as ultradeep, and an over 9,000-meter well as extra-deep. Around 60 percent of the global new oil and gas reserves have come from the deep strata in recent years.

China gets its oil and gas resources mainly from the deep and ultradeep strata, accounting for 34 percent of its total such resources, or 67.1 billion tons of oil equivalent, according to data by Sinopec.

The Tarim Basin is China's largest petroliferous basin, with oil and natural gas at 6,000-meter to 10,000-meter depths taking up to 83 percent and 64 percent of the country's total. It is also China's largest area rich in oil and gas deep underground.

（Picture: Veer）