China Depth: "Underground Everest" excavates oil and gas treasures

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that China's "basic research and original innovation have been continuously strengthened, some key core technologies have achieved breakthroughs, strategic emerging industries have developed and expanded, and major achievements have been made in manned spaceflight, lunar exploration, deep-sea deep earth exploration, supercomputers, satellite navigation, quantum information, nuclear power technology, new energy technology, large aircraft manufacturing, biomedicine, etc.
, and have entered the ranks of innovative countries"
.
Among them, the breakthrough of deep earth exploration is both affirmative and spurring
for scientific and technological workers in oil and gas exploration and development.

On May 30, 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping issued a call
to "march to the depths of the earth" at the "Three Sessions of Science and Technology".
One million oil people responded positively, determined to ensure national energy security and climb to a higher peak of scientific and technological innovation
.

In the face of numerous tests from the "underground palace", oil and gas exploration and development scientists and technicians have carried out arduous exploration aimed at new zones, new fields and new types, promoted continuous breakthroughs in ultra-deep exploration, and made ultra-deep oil and gas rise like the "underground sun"
.
In 2021, PetroChina's total drilling depth was equivalent to drilling through more than 3,500 "underground Everest"
.
The "China Depth" record has been repeatedly broken, laying a solid resource foundation
for ensuring national energy security.

Conquer the limits of the deep earth, new horizons, new situations Advance into the deep and ultra-deep

Going to heaven, going to the sea, and entering the earth are the three major feats
of human exploration of nature.
As one of the important means of "entering the ground", ultra-deep drilling is called "telescope deep into the Earth's interior"
.

In January 2015, the Keshen 902 well was drilled to a depth of 8,038 meters, breaking the record for ultra-deep wells in the inland of China at that time, and becoming the deepest well in PetroChina's onshore industrial airflow
.

In July 2019, Rotational Exploration Well 1 completed drilling to a depth of 8,882 meters and drilled through the "underground Mount Everest", marking the discovery
of a new layer of the Cambrian Usonger Formation.

In June 2022, the Shuangyu 001-H6 well was successfully drilled with a depth of 9,010 meters, setting a record
for the deepest onshore gas well in China.

The birth of one ultra-deep well after another benefited from the theoretical development and technological progress of exploration and development; One after another, new strategic resource succession areas have been opened up one after another, and the search for oil and gas resources in deeper and older strata has become an important target
for China's petroleum exploration and development.

At present, China's deep ultra-deep oil and gas resources account for 34% of the total oil and gas resources in the country, mainly concentrated in four large oil-bearing basins of Tarim, Junggar, Sichuan and Qaidam
.
This means that ultra-deep has become the main area
of oil and gas reserve enhancement and production in the future.
Only by exploring and developing deep oil and gas resources can we better ensure national energy security and support the development of
the petroleum industry.

In the past, the concept of deep wells in the eastern region was 3500 meters, and in the western region it was 4500 meters, but now it has been pushed more than 1 times
underground.
The number of ultra-deep wells drilled in PetroChina's deep wells has increased year by year, especially since 2016, the number of deep wells of 4,500 meters has increased by more than 20% per year, the number of ultra-deep wells of 6,000 meters has increased by more than 15% per year, and the number of ultra-deep wells with depths of 8,000 meters has doubled every year
.

While the exploration and development of deep-ground oil and gas resources has brought about the increase and production of oil and gas resources, the theory of petroleum geology has continued to make breakthroughs, promoting the formation of breakthroughs and innovations in the fields of ultra-deep drilling and completion, reservoir transformation technology and other fields, and forming a number of original innovative achievements
.

Especially in the Tarim Basin, the main raw oil layer is generally buried deeper than 10,000 meters, and the unique geological conditions such as ultra-deep development scale reservoir collectives determine that its 10,000 meters deep resources are very rich
.
According to Cai Zhenzhong, executive director and secretary of the Party Committee of the Tarim Oilfield Exploration and Development Research Institute, after the ultra-deep well drilling exceeds 9,000 meters, it is expected to discover another 1 billion tons of oil and gas field in the hinterland of the Tarim Basin and another trillion cubic meters of natural gas resources in front of
Kuqa Mountain.

Ultra-deep exploration and development has become the main body of PetroChina's reserve increase and efficiency growth, and an important strategic area
for future upstream business development.

Gao Qing's technical sword breaks through bottlenecks, breaks into forbidden areas, and knocks on the door of the deep "underground palace"

Searching for oil and gas in the deep "underground palace" is difficult to "Shu Dao", which is comparable to "ascending to the sky"
.

From the perspective of Tarim, Junggar, Sichuan and Qaidam basins, deep ultra-deep drilling faces a series of world-class problems
such as more complex geological structures and greater difficulty in safe drilling.

In the Taklamakan Desert, known as the "Sea of Death", there is a vast sea of sand above ground, and underground is a forbidden area
for exploration.
The ultra-high temperature of more than 200 degrees Celsius and the ultra-high pressure of more than 100 MPa underground are enough to make a hard drilling tool as soft
as noodles.

"Drilling a well, like opening a blind box, just opening an ultra-deep blind box costs at least tens of millions of yuan, or even hundreds of millions of yuan
.
" Hundreds of days of fighting in the isolated Gobi desert, if an empty box is opened, for the driller, it is a despair deeper than a well; For explorers, it's more pressure
than mountains.
Some experts bluntly said that among the 13 internationally recognized difficulty indicators for drilling, Tarim ranked first
in 7 of them.

How to successfully drill ultra-deep wells? How to play fast? How to play well? It is the scientific research "mountain"
that the oil people mainly attack.
In the face of the blockade of foreign technology and the challenges of underground rock formations, oil people regard scientific and technological innovation as the first driving force for high-quality development, tackle major theories, and tackle technical bottlenecks
.

In drilling, the tools and equipment that play a key central role are the most scientific and technologically rich and the most scientifically challenging
.
For example, high-strength drill bits with high rock breaking efficiency can greatly shorten the drilling cycle and make ultra-deep wells faster; High-precision directional measurement equipment equips the drill bit with "eyes", so that ultra-deep wells can be accurately
hit.

Zhang Quan, director of the drilling technology office of the drilling institute of the Tarim Oilfield Oil and Gas Engineering Research Institute, devoted himself to the research and development of key core technologies and tools
.
During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, focusing on the optimization of drill bits, Zhang Quan and his team innovated new high-efficiency drill bit technologies such as non-planar tooth PDC, and led the development of the first non-planar tooth product "Triangular Edge" in China, breaking through the technical ceiling of the industry in one fell swoop; Focusing on stratigraphic evaluation, Zhang Quan and his team established a set of comprehensive evaluation methods for drillability of complex and difficult-to-drill formations, and finally tackled the key problems to form an integrated collaborative acceleration technology
for drilling in deep complex and difficult-to-drill formations.

A technical sword plunged straight into the vast Gobi, the depths of the desert, and under the blade mountain, repeatedly finding "treasures" in the underground labyrinth, capturing one gas reservoir
after another such as Keshen and Bozi.

"The challenges that can be encountered when drilling ultra-deep wells are encountered in this well
.
" For the Shuangyu 001-H6 well in the Sichuan Basin, Wang Jian, the captain of the 90011 drilling team of Chuanqing Drilling Company, did not hide his anxiety
.
In order to overcome the adverse effects of ultra-high temperature and ultra-high pressure on construction, Chuanqing Drilling independently tackled key problems to form core technologies and equipment tools such as fine pressure controlled drilling and completion in the whole process of "drilling, testing, solidification and completion", creating a scientific and technological sword
for deep drilling.

After long-term research and experiments, petroleum science and technology workers gradually break the professional barriers between geology and petroleum engineering, and more reasonably connect geophysical engineering, logging technology, geomechanical evaluation technology, logging evaluation technology and other links, which not only reduces the complexity of drilling, but also reduces the leakage and spillage of fluids in the well
.

The acceleration of scientific and technological innovation has made impossible from the underground possible
.
Today, PetroChina's ultra-deep exploration and development has become the most technologically advanced business area
.

Build a big country and heavy weapons, capture the "oil dragon" and reduce the "gas tiger" to empower high-quality exploration and development

If a worker wants to do a good job, he must first sharpen his tools
.
The "device" that advances deep and ultra-deep is the drilling tool
such as ultra-deep well drilling rig and supporting drill pipe.

The ultra-high temperature and high pressure properties of ultra-deep wells put forward higher requirements
for drilling equipment, tools, instruments, working fluids, etc.
However, drilling tools have long been monopolized by foreign countries, often subject to people, and the rental price is high
.
If you want to keep the energy bowl firmly in your own hands, you must overcome this
difficulty.

In front of Kuqa Mountain, the most complex underground structure in the Tarim Basin, Tarim Oilfield and Gem Machinery Company joined forces to build the first 9,000-meter ultra-deep drilling rig with four single columns in China; Jointly with Baoji Steel Pipe Company, it developed the "Super 13 Chrome Tubing", which has higher performance and lower cost, and won the first place in the competition with imported tubing in the same block
.

The domestic 9,000-meter ultra-deep well automatic drilling rig independently developed by Gem Machinery has repeatedly set records
in the drilling of Shuangyu 001-H6 well.
The technical staff is equipped with a wellhead automation system, which can adapt to various environments and various requirements such as drilling rig installation, lifting, operation and maintenance, which provides great convenience
for the use, maintenance and maintenance of products.

Zhou Tianming, the backbone of gem machinery research and development technology, said: "The drilling rigs of gem machinery help drilling enterprises to continuously refresh China's deep well records, and at the same time, it will also promote us to continue to innovate and pursue excellence, and provide better equipment
for ensuring national energy security.
" ”

Oil and gas exploration and development are getting deeper and deeper, and supporting equipment manufacturing capabilities are getting stronger
and stronger.
New breakthroughs in major equipment and key core technologies have greatly boosted PetroChina's confidence
in marching deeper into the formation.
At present, a number of important oil and gas production equipment have been localized, and the self-developed domestic oil-based mud has broken the technical monopoly of foreign countries for several years.
.
.
A batch of "petroleum heavy equipment" has filled the domestic gap and continued to break through the "depth limit"
of engineering technology.

Every meter of in-depth exploration is a fusion of technology and innovation; Every connection is the mission of the "great of the country"
.
At present, oilmen have started a new journey of 10,000-meter ultra-deep engineering drilling in the Tarim Basin, "fueling" and "fighting"
for the country in deeper and more complex underground.
(Reporter Gao Feng)