Workers of CNPC Photo: CFP

 
China has embarked on an ambitious mission to tap into the depths of the earth, as its ultra-deep oil well, the Shendi Take 1, will conduct scientific exploration to discover oil under a staggering depth of 10,000 meters.

With a designed depth of 11,100 meters, the Shendi Take 1 ultra-deep well, located in the Tarim Basin in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is a part of the country's efforts to expand domestic oil production. Operating there is the country's first domestically developed 12,000-meter automated drilling rig.

The well had reached a depth of 9,028 meters in December, announced by CNPC Xibu Drilling Engineering Company on December 25, which was 49 days ahead of its schedule. As the well began drilling in a difficult formation, it is now heading for 10,000 meters.

In the oil drilling industry, wells between 4,500 and 6,000 meters are considered deep wells, those between 6,000 and 9,000 meters are super-deep wells, and any wells deeper than 9,000 meters is classed as the ultra-deep well. The greater the depth, the greater the challenges in exploitation, experts noted.

With the successful drilling of Shendi Take 1, China has officially entered the forefront in a series of technologies for deep Earth exploration, according to its operator, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

As China's first 10,000-meter-deep well, Shendi Take 1 carries two major missions: scientific exploration and oil and gas discovery. Its goals are to deeply explore the internal structure and evolution of the Earth, and to improve the theory of oil and gas accumulation in the 10,000-meter-deep layer, CNPC posted on its WeChat account.

The Tarim Basin is one of China's most promising onshore oil and gas basins, with oil and gas resources buried at depths of 6,000 to 10,000 meters, accounting for 83.2 percent and 63.9 percent of the basin's total reserves, respectively.

With domestically produced drilling rigs, Shendi Take 1 well continues to make progress beneath the surface. Meanwhile, Sinopec had drilled 108 oil and gas wells with depths exceeding 8,000 meters in the Taklamakan Desert of Xinjiang's Tarim Basin. 

On November 15, 2023, the Shunbei 3-3 deviated well reached a depth of 9,432 meters, making it one of the deepest commercial oil and gas fields onshore in China, according to Sinopec.