How to gnaw off "the most difficult bone in the world" in Tarim Oilfield
Tarim Oilfield employees are inspecting the Lunnan Gathering Station of the West-East Gas Pipeline.
Photo courtesy of Tarim Oilfield
At 0:00 on December 21, 2020, the PetroChina Tarim Oilfield in southern Xinjiang has an annual production of 6.001 million tons of petroleum liquids, 30.159 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and 30.312 million tons of oil and gas equivalent, becoming a 30 million tons of large oil and gas fields in my country and 30 billion. Atmospheric area of cubic meters.
It took 31 years to achieve this goal.
Scientific and technical personnel continue to tackle technical problems, deepen theoretical innovation, challenge the limits of ultra-deep exploration and development, and innovate to form two key oil and gas geological theories and four major exploration and development technology series, breaking through the safe isolation, rapid drilling, and rapid drilling of deep and ultra-deep complex oil and gas reservoirs. The three key technical bottlenecks of well integrity have broken through the foreign "stuck neck" technology one by one.
Hao Fang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of China University of Petroleum (East China), said with emotion: "Our theoretical and technological innovations have gnawed down 7 of the 13 most difficult bones recognized by the world geology community. This makes us stand It has become the forefront of world oil development, with the brilliant achievements of the Tarim Oilfield today."
Dare to shine before the world's problems
The Tarim Basin is the largest petroliferous basin on land in my country, and it is also the basin with the most difficult exploration and the greatest potential for increasing reserves and production in China.
Thirty-one years ago, a group of oil people from all over the motherland, carrying on searching for oil for the motherland and realizing the dream of my country’s oil industry’s strategic decision to “stabilize the east and develop the west”, marched into Tarim, turning this area of desert yellow into The world of red, yellow and green.
Xiong Jianhua, who is currently the deputy captain of the 247 team of the Tarim Geophysical Prospecting Office of the Eastern Geophysical Survey, came to Tarim in 1992 to participate in the oil campaign.
He recalled: “The geological problems in Tarim are world-class. Underground faults are developed and structures are superimposed, like a mysterious veil. Our geophysical personnel rely on hard work and responsibility to make these problems into real structures and structures. Enclose them so that they are no longer mysterious."
The Bozi 3D project is the first high-efficiency acquisition project of complex mountainous controllable seismic sources in the Tarim Basin.
According to the requirements of construction design, more than 70,000 focal points must be absolutely accurate.
However, the work area has tall mountains, boulders all over, and the weather is changeable.
In order to complete the construction project with high quality and efficiency, Xiong Jianhua commanded bulldozers to repair roads point by point in Jizhao Mountain and the vertical and horizontal gully during the day, and brought points to the seismic source at night to lead the seismic source into the working position accurately.
For 63 days and nights, they used the latest technology to achieve the first-class quality rate of seismic data as high as 99.96%, clearly depicting the structural hierarchy, making the imaging accuracy higher and trapping more accurate, and continuously making major discoveries in the Bozi area. Relying on the resource base of the second trillion cubic meters of atmospheric area to provide high-quality data.
Xiong Jianhua said: "I have been searching for oil in Tarim for 28 years. I have witnessed the continuous advancement of geophysical prospecting technology and the continuous updating of geophysical prospecting equipment. I have also witnessed the heroic feats of the Tarim Petroleum people who have challenged the limits and broke through the restricted zone."
According to Yang Xianzhang, Secretary of the General Party Branch of the Exploration Institute of the Exploration and Development Research Institute, the scientific research personnel of the Exploration Institute have used traps, well positions and reserves as their grasp for many years to innovate and form the "ultra-deep salt-bearing foreland basin oil and gas geological theory" and "ultra-deep" Fracture-cavity marine carbonate oil and gas geological theory" and its supporting exploration technologies have overcome many world-class technical bottlenecks and made major oil and gas discoveries one after another.
In the past 31 years, the Tarim Oilfield has successfully developed 32 large and medium-sized oil and gas fields. The oil and gas production reached 5 million tons in 2000, exceeded 10 million tons in 2005, surpassed 20 million tons in 2008, and reached 25 million tons in 2017. Cumulative contributions have been made to the country. The output exceeds 400 million tons, and the gas is supplied by 268.8 billion cubic meters to the west and east.
Search deeper underground for oil and gas
Chen Dong is a scientific and technical personnel of the Natural Gas Institute of the Tarim Oilfield Exploration and Development Research Institute. He has witnessed the process of breaking through the technical difficulties of foreign "stuck necks" and embarking on a path of independent innovation.
In 2004, the Kela 2 gas field officially supplied gas from west to east, pushing Tarim into a golden age of large-scale gas field development, and natural gas came into being.
Over the past 16 years, the Tarim Oilfield has experienced an arduous exploration of natural gas from an annual gas production of less than 3 billion cubic meters to 30 billion cubic meters of atmospheric area.
From 2000 to 2010, the Tarim Oilfield was based on the efficient development of condensate gas fields, developed technologies such as high-pressure cycle gas injection and pressure-maintaining exploitation, and efficient development of fractured clastic gas reservoirs, and successfully developed Yaha, Dina, and Yingmaili. Condensate gas field, built the largest domestic condensate gas field production base, achieved a stable production of 10 million tons of condensate oil and gas for more than 10 years, and pushed the oil field natural gas output to exceed 18 billion cubic meters.
After 2010, with the continuous breakthroughs in the exploration of deep-seated natural gas in Kelasu, the focus of Chen Dong and his partners began to shift to the deep-seated.
The Kelasu deep gas reservoir is buried at a depth of 8,000 meters, and its development characteristics are significantly different from conventional gas reservoirs. There are no examples for reference at home and abroad. The difficulties and challenges are unprecedented in history.
Through countless scientific and technological research, they created the triple-medium theory and technology system for ultra-deep fractured low-porosity sandstone gas reservoirs for the first time, and innovatively proposed the development model of "axis well layout, gentle extraction, and early water control", which enabled the natural gas production scale of Tarim to reach the end of the year. A new level of production of 26 billion cubic meters.
In the construction of large oil and gas fields, the production of new areas is the "accelerator", and the stable production of the old areas is the "ballast stone".
In 2018, Chen Dong and his partners launched a comprehensive management battle for old oil and gas fields.
Facing various challenges such as "precise well arrangement, effective water control, sand control and scale prevention", achieving stable production in old areas has become an urgent problem for them to solve.
Recalling years of arduous innovations, Chen Dong said: “We have joined hands with the Oil and Gas Development Department to carry out in-depth research based on the idea of'four clear and one specific', and innovated and developed key technologies for natural gas development. “Emergency” can be seen more clearly, the law of water invasion in fractured low-porosity sandstone gas reservoirs can be more accurately felt, and the mechanism of sand production and scaling in the wellbore can be analyzed more thoroughly. On this basis, we accurately implemented the comprehensive treatment of old oil and gas fields in Well 133 Secondly, the cumulative production capacity was restored to 4.15 billion cubic meters, which enabled the production of old areas to increase instead of falling, and the old gas fields gradually returned to a reasonable development order."
The Tarim Oilfield has innovatively explored the establishment of a management model for oil companies with Chinese characteristics to achieve high production of rare wells and high efficiency with a small number of people. The per capita production ranks first in my country's onshore oilfields, and the single well production is more than 10 times the average level of my country.
Be the guardian of stable production of oil and gas fields
Yan Jianye, who graduated from university in 2005 and came to work in the Tarim Oilfield, was once disappointed by the endless Gobi Desert, but was even more shocked by the fiery scene of oil exploration and development.
In 15 years, he has shifted for 3 years, patrolled wells for 2 years, participated in the construction of more than 100 projects, presided over many process transformations, and has been working on the front line of development and production.
Old oil and gas fields need to maintain stable production, and the maintenance of processing equipment is a routine work every year.
Production shutdown and maintenance have a great impact on output and high safety risks.
How can we achieve the "two-year inspection" without stopping production?
In the history of oil fields, there is no experience to learn from.
Yan Jianye led his colleagues around the site to discuss the installation project by project.
Only the “online maintenance of the emergency shut-off valve in the station” was discussed on the spot for more than 10 days.
They consulted experts, analyzed the valve structure, and finally came up with a solution.
After more than 100 days of continuous hard work, we finally compiled a non-stop overhaul plan and overhaul quality evaluation method.
With the joint efforts of everyone, this year's Dina treatment plant has successfully achieved continuous production overhaul, increasing the production of natural gas by 200 million cubic meters in one fell swoop, and also provided a reference for the "two-year inspection" of similar devices.
"The Dina Oil and Gas Development Department has always pursued the principle of fewer people and high efficiency, and it is very difficult to control costs. However, the mission goal cannot be changed, confidence and determination cannot be reduced, production must be intensively cultivated, and management must be carefully planned. I will lead everyone to all production sites, Analyze every expenditure, check every workload, find every "bleeding point", discuss every countermeasure, prepare a budget and a large list of measures, and track the implementation throughout the whole process. Year-end accounting, settlement expenses and the beginning of the year budget basically coincide. On the basis of an increase in output of 500 million cubic meters, operating costs have been reduced by 20%, winning the battle to improve quality and efficiency and defend the realization of benefits." Yan Jianye said with a smile.
Yang Xuewen, general manager of Tarim Oilfield Company, said: “The ultra-deep oil and gas resources in the Tarim Basin account for more than 60% of my country’s total onshore ultra-deep oil and gas resources. Since the 13th Five-Year Plan, the Tarim Oilfield has drilled 223 ultra-deep wells over 7,000 meters and over 8,000 meters. There are 5 ultra-deep wells, leading my country's ultra-deep oil and gas exploration and development."
Author: Joseph Reporter Wang