The Sudden Rise and Fall of Huabei Oilfield

Chapter 19 The Sudden Rise and Fall of Huabei Oilfield

1 A Concerted Effort of the Ministries of Geology and Petroleum

Starting in September 1975, I worked in Huabei Oilfield for eight years, until I was transferred back to Beijing at the end of 1982. Since I personally experienced its vigorous start and sudden decline, it is my responsibility and duty to document them. Huabei Oilfield is situated in the vast region south of Beijing and Tianjin, west of Cangzhou 沧州, east of the Taihang Mountains, and north of Shijiazhuang and Hengshui 衡水. Geologically speaking, it is called the Central Hebei Depression, with an area of 56,000 km2. It borders Tianjin’s Dagang Oilfield in the east and Henan Province’s Zhongyuan Oilfield in the south. Not far to the southeast is Shengli Oilfield in Shandong Province. These oilfields all belong to the oil- and gas-rich Bohai Bay Basin. Since Huabei Oilfield’s main oilfield was discovered in Renqiu County in Hebei Province, it is also called Renqiu Oilfield. The exploration of Huabei Oilfield started in 1955. The Ministries of Geology and Petroleum did a large amount of geological investigation, geophysical prospecting, and some drilling. In 1958 and 1972, more exploratory teams were sent out. These early endeavors had little success, though much valuable data was obtained. The fourth big attempt occurred in June 1973. Per Kang Shi’en’s instructions, the Ministry’s Planning Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development invited experts from the Ministries of Geology and Petroleum to conduct research and decide on the positions of the first group of wells on the four geological structures in Renqiu, Gaoyang 高阳 County, and Xian 献 County in central Hebei Province. This move yielded instant results. In June 1974, 3269 Drilling Crew of the Second Drilling Company of Dagang Oilfield, while drilling Jia-1 家一井, experienced a blowout at the Tertiary oil-bearing stratum. They completed the well and conducted well testing. It produced 63.3 tons of crude oil and 4,379 m3 of gas each day. This was the first exploratory well in the plains of Central Hebei that produced a commercial oil flow.

2 China’s First Buried-Hill Oilfield

In September 1974, when the Ministry of Geology Hebei Bureau’s 3505 Drilling Crew successfully drilled the Jimen-1 well (冀门一井) at the Shimenqiao

石门桥 structure in Renqiu County, they obtained an oily core measuring 0.92 meters, but the core for the first time was found in a Paleozoic stratum. This was an unprecedented discovery in China’s oil exploration history. The discovery of oil at Jimen-1 in a Paleozoic stratum got the attention of the Ministry of Petroleum. Under Kang Shi’en’s direction, in October 1974, more than 100 geological personnel from the Petroleum Geophysical Prospecting Bureau, Dagang Oilfield, and Planning Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development met at a petrochemical industry guest house in an eastern sub- urb of Beijing. Yan Dunshi 闫敦实, the vice president of Planning Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, presided over the effort. Petroleum Geophysical Prospecting Bureau experts such as Wang Shangwen, Meng Ersheng 孟尔盛, and Yuan Bingheng 袁炳衡 participated. Without using com- puters or calculators, people studied decades of seismic and drilling informa- tion from central Hebei Province. After several weeks of difficult research, they produced a general plan that included the drilling of Ren-4, the fourth exploratory well in Renqiu County. To facilitate this mission, they transferred 3269 Drilling Crew, which had drilled Jia-1, the first oil-producing well in central Hebei, to the site. Under the guidance of Yan Dunshi and Xian Xuefeng 咸雪峰, the deputy manager of Second Drilling Company, the crew repeatedly found oil and gas shows at Cenozoic strata. But they did not let this distract them, nor did they run tests while drilling. Since the Ministry of Geology’s Jimen-1, only five or six km away, had shown oil and gas at Paleozoic strata, they drilled down to that point. They entered the Paleozoic strata at 3,162 m. Throughout the drilling, geological personnel and workers cooperated closely on carefully recording data. Among countless cuttings, a worker found a few Paleozoic cuttings that contained oil. This was a good sign and a surprise. At 3,177 m, there was severe mud loss. Drilling was finished and the well tested at 3,200 m. On July 3, 1975, oil from the Paleozoic stratum gushed from Ren-4. In September the same year, the well received acid treatment. Producing as much as 1,014 tons of crude oil per day, it became the nation’s first high-yield buried-hill oil well. Experts explain that 500 million years ago, during the Paleozoic Era, the site of Huabei Oilfield might have been covered by sea, at the bottom of which lay very thick carbonate rock. Due to crustal movement, the bottom of the sea rose and became land, and the bulging parts became hills. Long-term erosion cre- ated cracks and caverns on the surface of the carbonate rock. In the Cenozoic Era, the crust moved downward, and the carbonate hills of Paleozoic Era were gradually covered over by Cenozoic sedimentary strata. The hills that were formed by Paleozoic Era strata and buried underneath Cenozoic Era strata are called “buried hills,” and the oil and gas reserves formed in these buried hills