On June.5, China announced it had made a breakthrough in natural gas hydrate exploration, known as the "next-generation of energy,"

　　At the press conference sponsored by China Ministry of Land and Resources on June 5, 2007, Zhang Hongtao, deputy director-general of China Geological Survey (CGS), said gas hydrate samples were successfully collected from drilling the northern part of the South China Sea last month. The samples were collected from two different stations on May 1 and May 15, he said. China is the fourth country after the United States , Japan and India to make such a technological achievement.

　　The China Geological Survey (CGS) began researching and prospecting the gas hydrates in the South China Sea less than seven years ago, and seeking possible international co-operation in 2004. Scientists estimate the potential volume of gas hydrates around continental slopes in the area exceeds 100 million tons of oil equivalents.

　　A gas hydrate (so called “combustible ice”) is a crystalline solid; its building blocks consist of a gas molecule surrounded by a cage of water molecules. Thus it is similar to ice , except that the crystalline structure is stabilized by the guest gas molecule within the cage of water molecules. Many gases have molecular sizes suitable to form hydrate, including such naturally occurring gases as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and several low-carbon-number hydrocarbons, but most marine gas hydrates that have been analyzed are methane hydrates.

　　Pressure and temperature are two of the major factors controlling where the hydrate(solid) or methane gas will be stable. Whether or not gas hydrate actually forms depends on the amount of gas available.

　　The gas hydrate is regarded as an optimal resource to replace oil and gas, which has been studied and explored by many countries in recent decades.

　　The developed countries seek to begin utilizing the resource by 2015, according to the scientist estimate, China would be even 2030 for an optimistic guess .