Sinopec's diamond drill instrumental in China's deepest oil well

The diamond drill bit produced by Sinopec Oilfield Equipment Corp in Wuhan, Hubei province, is playing a big part in excavating an ultra-deep oil well in the Tarim Basin of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

With the help of the drill bit, the country's first 10,000-meter well, called Shendi Take 1, has recently been completed with an excavation of 4,152 meters, a statement from the company said.

The deeper the well, the greater the difficulty development will face, said the statement.

Xu Lei, deputy director of the company's technology center, said the bit for drilling oil wells needs to drill holes in hard rock layers, not only relying on "drilling force", but also on "grinding force".

"It relies entirely on the circular superhard material embedded in the drill bit, which is called diamond composite sheet in the industry, and this type of diamond composite sheet can be used to drill through or wear through rock layers," he said.

According to the statement, the Shendi Take 1 is designed with a vertical well depth of 11,100 meters, a depth that China's onshore exploration has never reached before, far surpassing the height of Mount Qomolangma.

During the drilling process, equipment, including drill bit, drill rod and casings with a cumulative weight of more than 2,000 metric tons, will penetrate more than multiple geological layers, including the Cretaceous system, to reach the oil reservoir.

In the underground exploration of treasures at a depth of 10,000 meters, diamond drill bits are the "magic tool" for breaking through hard strata, the statement said.