Storyline: China discovers large shale gas reserves [Voice_over] Officials from the China Petrochemical Corporation, or Sinopec, announced the discovery of a new oilfield on the edge of central China's Hubei Province. Sinopec officials say the Hongxing shale gas field has more than 165 billion cubic meters of proven oil reserves. At depths of between 3,300 and 5,500 meters, and amid complex geological obstacles, officials said exploration for the field was challenging. But it seems to have paid off as the field has achieved a single-well test production volume of more than 323,000 cubic meters per day. A manager at the oilfield says although the shale gas formations are less thick than normal, they are dense, which makes them profitable none-the-less. [Sound_bite] Liu Aiwu, deputy manager, Exploration Management Department, Sinopec Jianghan Oilfield： "Based on past experience, both domestic and international research considers 30 meters as the minimum thickness for effective shale gas formations. However, the high-quality shale in the Hongxing shale gas field is only about 20 meters thick. However, the Hongxing shale is like a compressed biscuit, thin but dense." [Voice_over] The Hongxing field adds to a growing list of newly discovered reserves in China, like the Huizhou 19-6 deepwater oilfield that was discovered in the eastern South China Sea, in April with proven reserves of about 120 million cubic meters. [Restrictions : No access Chinese mainland]