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File photo of South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua]

China has succeeded in collecting samples of combustible ice in the South China Sea, a major breakthrough that may lead to a global energy revolution, Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming said Thursday.

This is China's first success in mining flammable ice at sea, after nearly two decades of research and exploration, the minister said at a trial mining site in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea Thursday.

China found flammable ice, a kind of natural gas hydrate, in the South China Sea in 2007.

International scientific circles have predicted that natural gas hydrate is the best replacement for oil and natural gas.