Progress in Study of Potash Resources of Oil (Gas) Field Brine in China

With a population of 1.3 billion, China is a large agricultural country. However, China is short of potash resources as the external dependence is more than 50% for many years. With the limited possibility for increasing potash reserves from surface salt lakes, and the challenge of finding potash deposit from marine strata has not been yet overcome, the oil (gas) field brine resources has become the preferred source for the urgent needs of potash. In recent years, a lot of exploration and research work on the oil (gas) field brine has been done under the guide of “oil and potash co-exploration” policy and delightful achievements have been obtained. The research achievements at Qaidam Basin, Sichuan Basin, Jianghan Basin and Tarim Basin were summarized in the present paper. All of the above basins are the most important areas with great prospects of oil (gas) field brine. This paper mainly focused on three aspects, the brine characteristics, the brine geochemistry and resource assessment. After the summary, the characteristics of oil (gas) field brine and the progress in study of that were gotten in different basins. It was suggested that the research work of (gas) field brine at Qaidam Basin should be emphasized. It was concluded that the evaluation work of oil (gas) field brine resources is insufficient at the four basins, and it is urgent to establish oil (gas) field brine resources evaluation criteria and methods.