High Hopes for Sichuan Oil and Gas
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Chapter 9 High Hopes for Sichuan Oil and Gas 1 Sichuan Basin: Rich in Oil and Gas Resources Sichuan Basin includes Sichuan Province, Chongqing Municipality, and some areas in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Hubei provinces. It is surrounded by mountain ranges such as Longmen 龙门, Dalou 大娄, Emei 峨眉, Wu 巫, and Daba 大巴, and its total area is 260,000 km2. Sichuan Basin has marine and continental beds 6,000–12,000 m thick. Rich oil and gas resources are found in Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata. Due to crustal movements, there are many faults in this basin, and the oil and gas reservoirs are fractured. In addition, its strata are steeply tilted and hard, the oil and gas are buried deep, and bottom hole temperature and pressure are high. All of this increases the difficulty of oil and gas extraction. 2 Zhuge Liang Makes a Fire Well Burn Brighter with a Glance Utilization of oil and gas in Sichuan has a long history. As early as the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE), people were using natural gas in Qionglai 邛崃, in western Sichuan. By 616 CE, Linqiong had become “a county of fire wells.” After 1041, mechanical punch drilling was invented and a set of unique natural gas extracting methods were developed. During the Liu-Song dynasty (420–479), Liu Jingshu 刘敬叔 in his A Garden of the Extraordinary (Yiyuan 《异苑》), wrote, “There are fire wells in Linqiong County, in Sichuan. When the Han dynasty was prosperous, they burned very brightly. By the time of Emperor Ling 灵帝 of Han [r. 168–189 CE] and Emperor Huan 桓 [r. 132–168], the fire became weaker. With one glance, Zhuge Liang1 made it burn more vigorously.” What a vivid description Liu Jingshu had for the natural gas wells in Linqiong, Sichuan! He associated the prosperity of the natural gas production with the prosperity of the country and to whether the authorities attached importance to it. The broad view of the past and pres- ent has much to savor. 1 Zhuge Liang 诸葛亮 (181–234), chancellor of the state of Shu, was a statesman and strategist in the Three Kingdoms period (220–265). He became a symbol of resourcefulness and wisdom in Chinese folklore. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004402737_010 High Hopes for Sichuan Oil and Gas 57 3 Natural Gas Was Used to Boil Salt in Zigong The natural gas-emitting artesian wells of Zigong, Sichuan are also parts of an ancient gas field. As early as 600 BCE, natural gas was being used to boil salt here. In 1770, a 560 m natural gas well was drilled here. By the end of the nineteenth century, daily natural gas production from this gas field already exceeded 1 million m3. By the end of 1949, this ancient gas field had cumula- tively produced more than 30 billion m3, and this played an important role in the economic development of this area. 4 Petroleum Bureau of Ministry of Fuel Industries Sets Up Chongqing Office After 1949, Sichuan’s oil and gas industry received more attention and was further developed. In December, 1949, the Chinese Communist Southwest Military Committee’s Industrial Department took over the Sichuan Oilfield Ex- ploration Division and its Chongqing sales office and immediately resumed production at two gas wells and the drilling of another exploratory well. Noted geologist Huang Jiqing was appointed to establish the Southwest Geological Survey Institute for this area’s oil and gas exploration. On July 1, 1950, the Sichuan Oilfield Exploration Division and the Chongqing sales office were consolidated into the Chongqing Office of the Petroleum Administration Bureau, under the Ministry of Fuel Industries, and PLA veteran Jiao Yiwen 焦益文 was appointed its director. Following the policy, “Focus on restoring the existing foundation, explore and develop at key locations,” set at the First National Petroleum Conference of April 1950, they concentrated on the southern part of the Sichuan Basin. In particular, they focused on natural gas production and on building a carbon black plant using natural gas as raw material. They made remarkable achievements. In May 1955, this division was expanded into the Sichuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau and relocated to Chengdu, with Jiao Yiwen as its director. 5 Mao Zedong Calls Yu Qiuli a Member of the “Children’s Corps” When Yu Qiuli was nominated to replace Li Jukui as Petroleum Minister by Defense Minister Peng Dehuai and recommended by Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong had a talk with Yu Qiuli in late January, 1958. As for the content of their con- versation, Yu Qiuli recalled, “The Chairman asked, ‘How old are you?’ I said, .