China’s coiled tubing market is expanding rapidly, highlighting growing demand for specialist well services in a country with huge oil and gas production and sustained energy demand.
In 2024 alone, over 15,000 coiled tubing interventions were performed across the country, according to the Intervention & Coiled Tubing Association (ICoTA), “placing China at the forefront globally and highlighting the enormous potential of this dynamic market.”
The association recently participated at the inaugural International Symposium on Coiled Tubing Technology in Wuhan after re-establishing its China chapter, a recognition of the country’s growing importance to global energy markets and in the evolution of advanced well technologies.
The recent symposium centred on the theme of ‘Innovative Application Scenarios, Unleashing Infinite Potential, and Sharing the Development in the Coiled Tubing Industry’.
“This conference embodies the spirit of ‘technology-driven innovation and win-win cooperation’— setting the stage for the new ICoTA chapter to foster international collaboration and advancements in the coiled tubing sector,” the association noted in a statement.
The symposium was co-hosted by China Petroleum Engineering & Technology Co., Ltd (CPET), National Engineering Research Centre for Oil & Gas Drilling and Completion Technologies, National R&D Centre for Intelligent Oil & Gas Well Engineering, the Coiled Tubing Engineering Committee of the Chinese Petroleum Society, and the CNPC Coiled Tubing Operations Technology R&D Centre.
Co-organisers included oil and gas heavyweights such as CNPC, Sinopec, CNOOC, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, as well as various renowned universities.
Areas covered during the forum included cutting-edge topics such as ultra-deep and long horizontal well coiled tubing operations, coiled tubing digitalisation, coiled tubing drilling, coiled tubing logging and offshore applications.
Among these, a session on coiled tubing digitalisation drew widespread attention, reflecting the industry’s strong momentum toward intelligent intervention technologies.
During the symposium, Steve Moir, Global Chair of ICoTA, delivered a keynote presentation and officially announced the establishment of ICoTA China, which will be led by CPET.
He also pointed out that the future development of coiled tubing technology will primarily focus on intelligent operations, enhanced adaptability to extreme conditions and deep integration with the energy transition.