Scientific issues on effective development of marine shale gas in southern China

Shale gas resources are abundant in China and have been discovered in some areas. They are widely distributed in the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian strata in Southern China, with technically recoverable resources accounting for 3/4 of the whole country. The Southern China will be the main area for shale gas development. Compared with North America, there are a lot of differences in shale gas exploration and development in Southern China which include intensive tectonic movements in marine shale, complex stress field, deep burial depth, special surface condition, etc. With those, it could be ineffective if the existing theories and techniques of shale gas developed in America are taken for granted. The nano-pore formation effects on shale gas production are unclear; Prediction methods for shale gas production have not been established; In the process of drilling, the horizontal section collapses seriously and the drilling cycle is too long; Stimulation effect is not ideal, with low single well production. In order to effectively develop shale gas in Southern China, three scientific issues should be studied which include quantitative characterization of nano-pore formation and multi-scale storage space, mechanisms of nonlinear flow under multi-field coupling in complex medium, mechanical mechanisms of shale instability and fracture network formation.