Natural gas resources and its development trend in Northeast Asia

There are abundant natural gas resources in the Northeast Asia area.Its prospective gas resource is about 70 trillion cubic meters. This area is a new gas source region where different types of basins dominated with paleo-cratonic inherited basins and late island associated basins were developed. The North China,Tarim and Yangzi areas in China and Siberia in Russia belong to paleo-cratons,and Verhne-yanskoe and Kuqa depressions belong to the foreland basins or cratonic marginal depressions,and the Northeast Sakhalin and the East China Sea are the back-arc basins.The natural gas is distributed primarily in the craton-inherited basins and cratonic marginal depressions or foreland basins,accounting for 80% of the total prospective gas resource.The Tertiary basins associated with the Middle Cenozoic island arc located in the present continent shelf have the resource potential accounting for over 10% of the total.Although gas development in Northeast Asia is still in a low level, this area will become a new important gas resource base in the world. The gas demand in Northeast Asia also shows a strong tendency of increase.