The Daqing Oil Field (), formerly
romanized
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
as "Taching", is the largest
oil field
A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations.
Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...
in the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, located between the
Songhua river
The Songhua Postal Romanization, or Sunghwa River (also Haixi or Xingal, russian: Сунгари ''Sungari'') is one of the primary List of rivers of China, rivers of China, and the longest tributary of the Amur. It flows about from the Chang ...
and
Nen River
The Nen River or Nenjiang (), or Nonni () is a river in Northeast China. The Nen River flows through the northern part of Heilongjiang Province and the northeastern section of Inner Mongolia, some parts of the river forming the border between the ...
in
Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
province. When the Chinese government began to use to
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
for romanization, the field's name became known as Daqing.
History
Discovered in 1959 by
Li Siguang,
Wang Jinxi
Wang Jinxi or Wang Chin-hsi (; 8 October 1923 – 15 November 1970) was a Chinese model worker and socialist hero known as 'Iron man' Wang, who led No. 1205 drilling team at Daqing Oil Field. He was the subject of a 1964 documentary '' Tieren' ...
(who led No. 1205 drilling team) worked on this oilfield. This field has produced over of oil since production started in 1960. Daqing contained or 2.2 billion tons in the beginning; the remaining recoverable reserves are about or 500 million tons. Due to the rapid increases in production in its early days, Daqing was lauded by China's state media as a model industrial enterprise throughout the 1960s and 1970s. As of 2013 the field's production rate was about .
It is reputed that during the first two decades of the life of the field, as much as 90% of the oil was wasted.
Daqing Oilfield Company Limited, based in
Daqing
Daqing (; alternately romanized as Taching) is a prefecture-level city in the west of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China. The name literally means "Great Celebration". Daqing is known as the "Oil Capital of China" and has experi ...
, is the operator of exploration and development of Daqing Oilfield. From 2004, the company plans to cut its crude oil output by an annual 7% for the next seven years to extend the life of Daqing.
Output of
barrels of oil equivalent of the Daqing Field remained stable at over 40 million tons in 2012, while output at
Changqing oil field
The Changqing oil field is an oil field located in Inner Mongolia. It was discovered in 1971 and developed by China National Petroleum Corporation. It began production in 1975 and produces oil and natural gas. The total proven reserves
Proven ...
was over 42 million tons, making it the most productive oil and gas field in China.
Crude output from the ageing Daqing oilfield is in decline even though the CNPC deployed some non-traditional drilling techniques. In 2019, output fell to 30.9 million tonnes from 32 million tonnes in 2018. At its peak in 2008, output stood at 40 million tonnes a year.
The production was 30 million tonnes in 2021.
A new shale oil field was discovered in Daqing Oilfield in 2021, with an estimated geological reserve of 1.268 billion tons
In popular culture
It is featured as a map in first-person shooter video game ''
Battlefield 2
''Battlefield 2'' is a first-person shooter video game, developed by DICE (company), DICE and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows in June 2005 as the third game in the Battlefield (video game series), ''Battlefield'' franchise.
P ...
''.
It was also featured in a dedicated part of the ''
How Yukong Moved the Mountains
''How Yukong Moved the Mountains'' (french: Comment Yukong déplaça les montagnes) is a series of 12 documentary films directed by Marceline Loridan-Ivens and Joris Ivens about the Cultural Revolution. Ivens and his partner Loridan worked on t ...
'' documentary, "About Petroleum".
See also
*
List of oil fields
This list of oil fields includes some major oil fields of the past and present.
The list is incomplete; there are more than 25,000 oil and gas fields of all sizes in the world. However, 94% of known oil is concentrated in fewer than 1500 giant ...
References
{{Heilongjiang topics
Oil fields in China
Geography of Heilongjiang
Daqing