BEIJING -- Over 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas has been discovered at the Lingshui 17-2 gas field in the South China Sea, China's largest producer of offshore oil and gas announced on Monday.

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) said the Ministry of Land and Resource has approved Lingshui 17-2 as a large-scale gasfield.

The company's deepwater drilling rig CNOOC 981 discovered Lingshui 17-2, the country's first self-support deepwater gas field, in September 2014.

Located 150 km south of Hainan Island, Lingshui 17-2's average operational depth is 1,500 meters below the sea surface, according to the CNOOC.

Xie Yuhong, a manager with CNOOC, said the approved gas reserves of Lingshui 17-2 will help the corporation build a gas trunk line to connect other gas fields in the South China Sea, so as to meet the huge gas demand of southern provinces, Hong Kong and Macao.