Exploring Treasures 11,100 Meters Underground! Domestic Drilling Rig Advances Into Underground Everest

According to the standards of the oil exploration industry, wells with a depth of 4,500 meters to 6,000 meters are considered deep wells, wells with a depth of 6,000 meters to 9,000 meters are considered ultra-deep wells, and wells exceeding 9,000 meters are considered extra-deep wells. The deeper the well, the greater the difficulty of development. Not long ago, the depth of a well drilled in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang reached nearly 10,000 meters, far exceeding the height of Mount Everest.

11,100 meters underground, oil and gas are still being exploited

The designed vertical well depth of Shenzhen Taco No. 1 in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang is 11,100 meters. This number is a depth that has never been reached before in China's onshore exploration. The country's first 12,000-meter automated drilling rig independently developed by my country is operating here.

The Tarim Basin is one of the basins with the greatest onshore oil and gas potential in my country. Oil and natural gas resources buried at a depth of 6,000 meters to 10,000 meters account for 83.2% and 63.9% of the total reserves of the Tarim Basin respectively.

The rocks under the quicksand have been deposited for hundreds of millions of years. To pry out an oil and gas channel between the rocks, one needs to overcome extremely high temperatures, extremely high pressures and extremely high ground stresses.

During the drilling process, drill bits, drill pipes, casing and other equipment with a cumulative weight of more than 2,000 tons will go deep underground, penetrate more than 10 formations including the Cretaceous, and reach the oil reservoir.

The power of the drill bit comes from the drill pipe. Although from the outside, the length of a single drill pipe is only 10 meters and the diameter is only 14 centimeters, the seemingly fragile hollow steel pipe has more than a thousand sections connected to each other and can penetrate 10,000 meters underground to transmit power to the drill bit.

There is a saying in the oil industry that "if the drill bit is not available, the oil and gas will not escape." The importance of drill bits for oil exploration is evident. At present, most of the drill bits used in ultra-deep drilling platforms such as "Takone No. 1" have been domestically produced.

When searching for treasures underground in wells 10,000 meters deep, diamond drill bits are the "artifact" that can break through hard strata. A company in Wuhan has the largest digital production line for diamond drill bits in China. The ultra-high-pressure composite sheets they developed are as sharp as teeth and are both high-strength and wear-resistant, as well as tough and impact-resistant.

In July 2023, the company's scientific research team developed the first 80,000 atmosphere pressure composite tablet.

Xu Lei, deputy director of the Technology Center of Sinopec Jiangzuan Company and director of the Materials Research Institute: 80,000 atmospheric pressure is equivalent to the pressure generated by eight 10-ton elephants standing on a fingernail. This pressure level is very high. High.

After 70 years of R&D and manufacturing in China, almost 99% of drilling rig hardware can now be domestically produced. Domestic integrated software was also launched at Baoji Petroleum Machinery Co., Ltd. 4 years ago. This set of software is compatible with most domestic supporting equipment. The hardware completely solves the situation where the drilling rig centralized control system is controlled by others.

With the help of domestic drilling rigs, "Taco No. 1" continues to advance towards the "Underground Everest". Sinopec's "Deep Earth Project" Shunbei Oil and Gas Field, also located in the Taklimakan Desert of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, has currently drilled 108 oil and gas wells with a depth of more than 8,000 meters. On November 15, 2023, the "Deep Earth Project" Shunbei 3 The -3 inclined well has been drilled to a depth of 9,432 meters, which is also one of the deepest commercially developed oil and gas fields in China.

Data show that my country's annual crude oil production will increase to 204 million tons in 2022, jumping back to the 200 million tons level, and the dependence on foreign crude oil will drop to 71.2%.