(Yicai) Nov. 16 -- China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, better known as Sinopec, said Asia's deepest onshore crude oil and natural gas well has become operational.

Yuejin 3-3XC, which is located in the Tarim Basin of China's northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is 9,432 meters deep, the Beijing-based energy giant announced late yesterday.

China, the world's largest importer of crude oil and one of its biggest importers of natural gas, is working to diversify its energy sources, including domestic oil and gas exploration, to reduce the country’s dependence on energy imports.

Sinopec started drilling the Yuejin 3-3XC well on May 1 and finished on Oct. 26, a company insider said, adding that it is expected to produce 200 tons of oil and 50,000 cubic meters of gas a day.

To protect the local environment, the well sits miles outside the wetland nature reserve upstream from the Tarim River, but turns underground to reach the oil and gas underneath the reserve, the person added.

The industry classifies a 4,500-meter to 6,000-m oil and gas well as deep, a 6,000 to 9,000-m well as ultradeep, and a more than 9,000-m well as extra-deep. Around 60 percent of new global oil and gas reserves have come from the deep strata in recent years.

Deep and ultra-deep wells have become the mainstay of major discoveries in China, accounting for 34 percent of the country’s total oil and gas resources, or 67.1 billion tons of oil equivalent, according to Sinopec data.

The Tarim Basin is China's largest petroliferous basin, with oil and gas at 6,000 to 10,000-m depths making up 83 percent and 64 percent of the country's total. It is also China's largest area rich in oil and gas deep underground.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev