China News Service, Tianjin, May 1st, Question: Great Power Craftsmen in the Deep Ocean: Cracking the "Deep Sea Oil Field Labyrinth" with the Spirit of Yu Gong
Author Wang Zaiyu
Xu Changgui was born in 1971 and is the general manager of the CNOOC Exploration Department. Since his 23 years of work, his offshore exploration footprints have spread all over China's seas. As the main discoverer, he has guided the discovery of 22 oil and gas fields and submitted to the state the proven geological reserves of over 1 billion tons. oil equivalent.
In 1998, Xu Changgui, a graduate student, was assigned to the Bohai Petroleum Research Institute, where he was engaged in the most basic geological research.
He looked at cores and cuttings every day, recorded and analyzed data, and the process was cold and tedious.
At that time, 100 million-ton oil fields had been discovered in the shallow layers of the Bohai Sea, but the deep oil exploration had not yet made a breakthrough, so Xu Changgui made up his mind to explore new oil fields in the deep seabed for the motherland.
The "cold bench" in the Bohai core library
Standing in front of the desk in the core chamber, Xu Changgui picked up a long gray rock and said, "These cores are drilled from the bottom rock formations in the Bohai Sea. The oldest ones can be traced back to the Archean, and the younger ones are also required. For tens of millions of years, they are the timetable of the Earth, the chronological record of condensation."
Xu Changgui said that the geological structure of the Bohai Sea is complex, and four fault zones have cut the entire Bohai underground rock formations into pieces. Finding oil is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Studying these "fossil antiques" in the rock core room is not boring, but Xu Changgui doesn't think so. In his eyes, these rock cores are the keys to open the door to the deep-sea underground labyrinth.
Basic research is difficult and difficult to achieve, but Xu Changgui insisted on it for seven years, just sitting on the "cold bench".
In those years, he read the cores of the Bohai Oilfield, read thousands of documents with the team, explained the seismic profiles of tens of thousands of kilometers, and firmly put the code to crack the "deep sea labyrinth" in his heart.
It was these seven years of solid foundational work that led him to establish the principle of coupled sand control in continental rifted basins in time and space and its industrial application technology system, which guided the prediction of deep clastic rock reservoirs in the Bohai Sea, with a success rate of 40%. It has been increased to more than 80%, which directly guided the discovery of many large and medium-sized oil and gas fields such as Jinzhou 20-2N and Lvda 16-3/3S.
Innovative principles to crack the "deep sea labyrinth"
In 2010, Xu Changgui "take over" a structure in the Liaodong Bay of the Bohai Sea that has not achieved breakthroughs for a long time. The labyrinth-like seabed structure here has caused many exploration teams to fail.
Where are the oil and gas rich areas in Liaodong Bay?
Where to drill next?
All became a question that Xu Changgui could not answer for a while.
At this time, an old expert kindly reminded him: "Xiao Xu, why are you screwing like this? Three empty wells have been drilled in this structure that is less than 4 square kilometers. If it is emptied again, how can you explain it to the unit? "
In the face of this block where many foreign oil companies have achieved nothing in the past 18 years and have already been sentenced to "death penalty", Xu Changgui "squatted" in the core storage during the day and read the "Failed Well" at night. New ideas for exploration of strata.
The goodwill of the old expert failed to shake his determination, and Xu Changgui insisted on trying again.
In the end, with a round of careful research, Xu Changgui led the team to create the theory of strike-slip transition zone reservoir control, and achieved high production in Well Lvda 6-2-4. More than 50 million cubic meters of geological reserves were discovered in this structural zone alone. Successfully found the "big treasure" from the "deep sea labyrinth" abandoned by foreign oil tycoons.
The new theory and innovative understanding created by Xu Changgui and his team guide the exploration of complex fault zones in the Bohai Sea, increasing the exploration success rate from 22% to over 50%.
Technological breakthroughs from ocean to "overseas"
In 2017, Xu Changgui was transferred to the Tianjin Exploration Department. At this time, the evaluation of the Bozhong 19-6 structure was in trouble, and the exploration operation was in a dilemma.
At the critical moment, Xu Changgui led the team to optimize the geological design again, improve the test process, and finally achieved high yield in the buried hill test, breaking the deadlock of Bozhong 19-6 gas field exploration and opening up a new situation in Bohai Sea exploration.
It is this spirit of daring to innovate that promotes the continuous improvement of CNOOC's exploration level.
Talking about breakthroughs in technical theory, Xu Changgui said: "In the past, foreign offshore oil exploration level was stronger than ours; now, our technical theory is gradually being valued and recognized by foreign experts."
The craftsman's spirit of in-depth research and innovation is an important prerequisite for theoretical breakthroughs in industrial technology. Xu Changgui said to young employees, "Only by adhering to this spirit and constantly breaking through and innovating, can we communicate with foreign experts on an equal footing from a scientific perspective."
With the unremitting efforts of countless people from CNOOC, China's offshore oil exploration has gradually moved from the inner sea to the "outer sea", both in terms of technical theory and application practice, toward the stars and the deep sea.
(Finish)