Photo taken on June 13, 2015 shows the Xingwang deep-sea semi-submersible drilling platform at Liwan3-2 gasfield in the South China Sea, south China.  (Xinhua/Zhao Liang)

A new gas and oil field was discovered at China's Pearl River mouth basin in the eastern region of the South China Sea, China's largest offshore oil and gas producer China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) announced on Monday.

Named Huizhou 26-6, it is the largest oil and gas field found by China's self-operated exploration teams in the Pearl River mouth basin area, CNOOC said. The geological reserves in the new field have been proven to be equivalent to 50 million cubic meters of oil, and it has been reviewed and approved by the Oil and Gas Reserves Review Office of the Ministry of Natural Resources of China.

The new field is believed to help enhance the energy security capabilities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It is 162 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong, with an average water depth of about 113 meters; and the thickness of the reservoir layers reaches up to 422.2 meters. 

What's more, the discovery wells test indicates that more than 500 cubic meters of crude oil and 600,000 cubic meters of natural gas can be produced per day, Gao Yangdong, chief geologist of the Shenzhen branch of CNOOC, told the media.

Once production is rolled out, the field will bring considerable social and economic benefits, and provide resource support for the production of 20 million tons of oil, Gao said. The natural gas from the field can be continuously transported to thousands of households in the Greater Bay Area.

It is the first time that China has achieved a major breakthrough in the exploration and development of buried hills reservoirs in the eastern South China Sea, ending more than 40 years without any commercial discoveries, Gao noted.

CNOOC's oil field in the eastern South China Sea has become an important offshore oil and gas production base in China, with more than 10 million cubic meters equivalent of oil and gas output annually for 25 consecutive years and 15 million cubic meters output for six consecutive years.