An 8,875-meter-deep exploration well is under construction by Sinopec Corp. at Southwest China's Sichuan Province. Its completion will set a new record as the deepest well in Asia, reported the Xinhua News Agency Monday.

The well named "Chuanke No.1 Well" is estimated to siphon some 300 million yuan (US$38.8 million) in investment and will take 676 days pursuant to its completion date, according to Zhang Xiaopeng, deputy chief engineer of the project.

"We have done 100-meter and everything goes on well in the first four days," Zhang said.

According to him, scientists will make good use of the drilling to better study the distribution of nature gas and oil to facilitate the exploration of gas fields lying in the ultra-deep layer, which is deeper than 7,000 meters.