Equipment is the carrier of advanced technology. For oil drilling, without excellent drilling equipment, it is impossible to achieve high-quality, sound, and efficient exploration and development goals, nor can it provide guarantees for exploration and development. In a sense, equipment is a sharp weapon for exploration and development. The reporter learned from the "2009 China Oil and Gas Forum of the Chinese National Committee of the World Petroleum Congress - Drilling Equipment Exhibition" held in Beijing from October 30th to 31st that over the past few decades, China iss oil drilling equipment has made leapfrog development, with equipment manufacturing moving from low-end to high-end. This not only meets the needs of China iss oil exploration and development, but also goes abroad and is exported to the international market. Some equipment, such as top drives, drilling rigs, and blowout preventers, etc, China has become the world is largest supplier.

From Introduction to Independent Innovation: Gradual Localization of Drilling Equipment in China

China was the earliest country in the world to apply drilling technology, with natural gas wells as early as 69 BC and oil wells from 1206 to 1368 AD. With the emergence of oil and gas wells, drilling equipment has also emerged. From 1041 to 1053 AD, a casing made of hollow bamboo was formed, which was the earliest drilling equipment in China.

After liberation, due to the constraints of China iss basic industrial level, the level of drilling equipment has always lagged behind the world iss advanced level. In summary, the development of modern drilling equipment in China can be divided into three stages.

The 1950s to 1970s were the initial stages of modern petroleum drilling equipment. The main feature of this stage is the introduction and imitation of Soviet powered drilling rigs, with joint drive as the main driving method. During this period, petroleum equipment was mainly introduced, imitated, and applied in supporting facilities. Various oilfield machinery manufacturing enterprises mainly carried out equipment overhaul and support.

The 1980s to 1995 were the development stages of oil drilling equipment. At this stage, the NSCO1320 drilling rig from the United States was introduced, and on this basis, a series of drilling rigs such as ZJ45 were developed semi imitatively and semi independently. At the same time, driving equipment has also developed rapidly, forming not only the production capacity of domestic heavy-duty drilling rigs, but also the development of supporting tools and instruments. The localization level and performance of equipment have been improved. On this basis, China Petroleum has developed jet drilling, directional drilling, cluster drilling, and horizontal well drilling technologies, greatly improving drilling construction capabilities.

Since 1996, the independent research and development capability of oil drilling equipment has been greatly improved. On the basis of introducing and digesting foreign advanced technology, a series of specialized special drilling rigs of different types have been independently developed, forming the diversification of oil rig. After producing the first new electric drive drilling rig ZJ70D, China has continuously innovated and produced a batch of new oil drilling equipment, including the Chunxiao offshore platform module drilling rig, which is renowned as a "sharp weapon" to win the East China Sea oil defense battle, the world iss first artificial island 7000 meter circular track mobile module drilling rig, and the 12000 meter ultra deep well drilling rig, which represents China iss drilling rig manufacturing level.

With the development of drilling equipment, China iss drilling level has also significantly improved. In 1950, China iss petroleum industry drilled 19 wells with a footage of 6900 meters. By 2008, China iss petroleum industry alone had drilled 19229 wells with a footage of 35.45 million meters. China iss drilling scale has reached the second place in the world, second only to the United States and ranking second in the world.

From self-sufficiency to going global: becoming a globally renowned supplier

The level of a country iss drilling equipment is not only measured by the depth of oil drilling, but also by whether its performance has advantages compared to similar products in the international market, whether it is accepted by international peers, and whether it can enter the international market and maintain a high market share in the international market.

In recent years, China iss rapid economic development has put forward higher requirements for energy production. In order to ensure national energy security, China has continuously increased the exploration and development of oil and gas resources. With the increasing difficulty of drilling, the requirements for drilling equipment are also increasing. In order to meet the drilling conditions of complex terrains, China has strengthened research and development, continuously innovated, and multiple technologies have become internationally leading.

Firstly, the drilling ability has been greatly improved. After successfully developing the first 9000 meter ultra deep well AC variable frequency drilling rig in China in 2003, at the end of 2007, China independently developed an electric drive drilling rig with a drilling depth capacity of 12000 meters, which was successfully installed and debugged on the Chuanke 1 well of the Western Sichuan Marine Science Exploration Well and put into use. The rig is recognized as one of the most advanced ultra deep well land oil rig in the world. Its successful development has greatly enhanced the competitiveness of China iss oil drilling equipment in the international market.

With the development of oil and gas drilling technology, it has gone through the era of heavy drilling and rotary drilling, and the emergence of top drive drilling devices is another leap in drilling technology. Top drive is a major cutting-edge technology and equipment in the current oil and gas drilling industry, known as one of the three major technological achievements of modern drilling equipment. In the past, it has been monopolized by several companies from a few developed countries such as the United States and Canada. China has been tracking and researching this technology since the late 1980s, and completed the trial production of the first prototype in 1995. In 2003, it began to implement domestic large-scale production of top drive devices. By March 2006, Beijing Petroleum Machinery Factory alone had exported more than 30 top drive units. At present, top drive devices have been exported to multiple regions around the world, including more than 40 countries such as the United States, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iraq, and Iran. China iss top drive equipment exports have already ranked among the top in the world.

With the rapid development of drilling rigs and driving devices, well control equipment such as blowout preventers, hydraulic control devices, and manifolds have also been greatly improved. Especially for blowout preventers, after more than 20 years of research and development, China has already developed its own core technology, and has successively conquered a series of key technologies such as material energy consumption, anti-corrosion technology, sealing structure, rubber production, and developed a series of new products. At present, Hebei North China Petroleum Rongsheng Machinery Manufacturing Company has become the world iss largest onshore blowout preventer production enterprise, making important contributions to improving the level of drilling and operation equipment in China, reducing production costs, and especially ensuring the safety of drilling production in China.

In recent years, China iss oil drilling equipment, tools, and instruments have developed rapidly, not only improving the ability and level of oil drilling business, but also improving the effectiveness of exploration and development. Manufacturing enterprises have also developed rapidly. At present, drilling rigs produced by Baoji Petroleum Machinery Co., Ltd., top drive devices produced by Beijing Petroleum Machinery Factory of China Petroleum Drilling Engineering Research Institute, and blowout preventers produced by Rongsheng Machinery Manufacturing Company of Hebei North China Petroleum have all become world-renowned suppliers. In the field of drilling equipment, China has developed from an importing country to an exporting country.

From the Present to the Future: Technological Innovation Brings Up the "Divine Seven" in the Land Since becoming a net importer of oil in 1993, China iss dependence on foreign oil has been increasing, currently exceeding 50%. In order to ensure China iss energy supply, it is necessary to increase the exploration and development of oil and gas resources, advance towards deep land and ocean layers, and demand production and benefits from complex formations and low abundance and permeability oil and gas layers. However, it is also very unreliable to buy foreign energy supplies only from the market. Obtaining the exploration and development rights of crude oil producing areas and obtaining share of oil through cooperative development is a common practice of oil importing countries in the world. As the representative of emerging economies, China, as the world iss oil giants, is more difficult to compete for resources in the market that has been divided up by the world iss oil giants. It requires not only Energy diplomacy at the national level, but also lower costs, More advanced equipment technology is provided as a guarantee. This requires China Petroleum Drilling Engineering to continuously improve the applicability of equipment, optimize drilling design, adopt new technologies, materials, and methods, improve drilling speed, shorten well construction cycles, reduce costs, and continuously expand the available range of oil and gas resources through technological breakthroughs.

The development and application practice of foreign technology indicate that continuous pipe drilling technology will become an important means of improving oil and gas recovery by utilizing drilling engineering technology. Continuous pipe drilling technology and underbalanced technology can be well applied in the deepening of old wells and drilling horizontal wells, which plays an important role in increasing oil field production and extracting difficult to use reserves. Utilizing existing wellbore to low-cost extract deep reservoirs and improve final recovery rate plays an important role. The United States has been researching and using coiled tubing since the 1990s, and China has also increased research on coiled tubing drilling technology and equipment in recent years. The Jianghan Machinery Research Institute of China Petroleum Group Drilling Engineering Technology Research Institute has conducted continuous research on continuous pipe drilling technology and equipment, and has also made significant progress. The emergence of the new composite continuous pipe drilling machine further enhances the adaptability of continuous pipe drilling, and the improvement of supporting special tools has also made gratifying progress, making the continuous pipe drilling machine further develop towards digitalization and intelligence. We believe that continuous pipe drilling equipment will definitely bring more and faster progress to the drilling industry in the future.

With the increasing depletion of land resources, oil and gas extraction is gradually shifting to the ocean, and countries have increased their research on offshore drilling equipment and technology. China iss offshore oil and gas development has a history of nearly 40 years, but from the perspective of marine engineering equipment and technology, there is still a significant gap compared to advanced countries in the world, especially in terms of semi submersible platform technology. At present, deep-sea drilling operations are showing a rapid growth trend, resulting in a shortage of semi submersible drilling platforms. Therefore, developing a semi submersible drilling platform with independent intellectual property rights is an important and forward-looking issue for China.

Overall, in recent years, oil drilling equipment has mainly shown the following trends. Firstly, the forms tend to be more diverse. With the development of drilling technology, more and more new requirements are put forward for drilling equipment, which is developing towards diversification and serialization. We need to develop specialized special drilling rigs that are suitable for different regions and environmental conditions, and can meet the requirements of different drilling conditions, drilling processes, well depths, and well types. Secondly, technology tends to evolve first. Through the cross combination of advanced technologies such as AC frequency conversion, hydraulic drive, automatic control, and artificial intelligence, and with the widespread application of computer, communication, and network technology, the mechanization, automation, and intelligence development of drilling equipment has shown greater superiority. At the same time, design tends to be more humanized. The new drilling equipment fully embodies the people-oriented concept, maximizing the satisfaction of environmental protection, safety and other requirements. The design is more refined, and remote control equipment is used to the greatest extent. Through the automation design of the drilling rig, manual and high-altitude operations are avoided as much as possible.

The development of oil drilling equipment has also put forward requirements for the development of supporting equipment. In order to meet the requirements of mechanization, automation, intelligence, and remote control of drilling equipment, it is also necessary to accelerate the development of mechanized equipment and supporting instruments, wellhead tools, etc. that are suitable for modern drilling operations, in order to further improve the efficiency of drilling operations and the overall automation level of the drilling rig.

In the context of globalization of oil and gas resources, China Petroleum relies on independently developed and manufactured oil drilling equipment, which not only earns sustainable profits and space for Chinese equipment companies, but also creates low-cost engineering and technical service advantages, making China Petroleum more competitive in international cooperation.