Taiwan's state-owned oil firm, CPC, has newly found reserves of natural gas in Gongguan Township of Miaoli County, which are expected to contain more than one billion cubic meters of gas. CPC plans to start production at the new site by the end of next year.

New energy reserve is discovered in Taiwan.

After more than 9 months of work, CPC finally discovered a rich natural gas reserve at Chuhuangkeng in Gongguan Township of Miaoli county, which is the oldest oil deposit in Taiwan.

CPC began to survey the reserve at this area again since last August and discovered eleven untouched gas layers at about 3800 meters underground.

According to the estimation, the reserve here is over one billion cubic meters.

Because there are a lot of gas layers in Chuhuangkeng, for the sake of efficiency, CPC plans to dig two to three new wells around for extracting the shallower layers.

The company believes the supply of natural gas resources cannot meet with the rising demand of energy. The annual consumption of natural gas is about 11 billion cubic meters.

But the local production is only 400 million cubic meters and the rest depends on imports.

The one billion cubic meters of natural gas from an old oil deposit is like a bonus for the island, and the reserve is expected to serve for 20 years.

While the CPC plans to have the well join the supply chain by the end of 2011, the company also begins to re-evaluate the possibilities of mining at old oil deposits.