Poster news reporter Liu Lu reported from Beijing
The winds of the wilderness are always more wild than the winds of the cities, the rivers that run through the canyons are whispering, and each mountain has its own secrets. Human beings trace and record the coming and going of every mountain and river, and the stories of billions of years ago, in addition to books on the surface of the earth, are also buried underground.
The oil buried in the ground is called "black gold", and the oil explorer is the "gold seeker". Most of the early oilfield exploitation in the mainland was concentrated in the eastern region, but with the increasing difficulty of marine exploitation, oilfield exploration has begun to shift to the west in recent years, and Sichuan, Xinjiang and Tibet have become relay areas. Finding oil in the vast western land is more like an exploration. Zhuang Xinbing belongs to the Changtang project team of the Sinopec Petroleum Exploration and Development Research Institute, and Jiao Cunli and Li Jianjiao belong to the Tarim project team, and all three have participated in oil exploration for more than 15 years.
Zhuang Recruits conducting scientific expeditions in Tibet
Source
After three months in tibet's Changtang Basin, Zhuang recruits returned to Wuxi in early October last year. In short, his job is to "find oil", and he has been found in Changtang, Tarim, and on the eastern coast. Discovering the oil field is not a simple thing, only with a professional direction, a person, it is impossible to complete, out of the field to complete the project, are team combat, "a dozen or twenty people range, depending on the size of the project." ”
After graduating from university, Zhuang Xinbing began to engage in oil exploration, mainly in the direction of raw oil, in layman's terms, that is, to find and discover the complete vein of underground oil generation. Raw oil is a verb, organic matter is deposited into the ground, such as algae, bacteria or animals and plants, "that kind of native thing, after a long period of geological changes, suddenly at a certain moment ushered in the driving force, born oil, raw oil in the ground is not discharged, this is raw oil." "Like pregnancy, getting pregnant in October, trying to conceive, conceiving, and conceiving is a complete process.
Zhuang recruits look for geological outcrops and sections in the field, then sample, and knock the exposed stones in the outside world down with a geological hammer, put them in white sample bags, and carry them back to the laboratory for study. "Let's study why this stone can produce oil, how much can it produce, and where may the oil that is produced go?"
In field exploration, like Zhuang Recruits, most oil exploration team members' job is to find connections with the underground world in the existing geographical environment.
The oil or mineral deposits buried in the ground will always leave traces on the surface, as if they are hidden in the clothes corner exposed outside the cabinet, and most people are also relying on this "clothing corner" to trace and explore. In the eyes of prospectors, the "clothing corner" may be a stone exposed on a certain terrain (also called an outcrop), a section left by a formation arched by a natural external force, or a mountain peak flying somewhere.
But discovery also means looking again, because oil will run. As a fluid mineral, oil doesn't always lie somewhere underground, and earthquakes, plate uplifts, or crustal movements can cause it to flow elsewhere.
"It's going to be like water, and when the cup is bent, it's going to flow." Zhuang Xinbing explained that unlike solid ore, oil is an ore fluid, "it does not mean that we can find gold when we find a stone, we can find gold from how it is buried, how it changes, where it is born, and then where it goes, how it can be stored later, and how to extract it." This amounts to a complete system. ”
Exploration crews cannot and do not miss any clues, and if they do, the exploitation of underground oil may be centuries later.
Run oil
In oilfield exploration, the exploration team members are not a professional direction, some people graduate oil, some people study running oil. If you want to review the trajectory of underground oil, it is difficult to rely on only one professional direction, each professional is very narrow, and it needs to cooperate with each other. The exploration team, composed of researchers from different research directions, has only one purpose, "to find out where the oil is going and how to find it." ”
Under normal rules, oil is distributed in basin areas, because the liquid will always flow to low-lying places. However, the basin area is vast, with the Qaidam Basin covering an area of 250,000 square kilometers, the Tarim Basin covering an area of 400,000 square kilometers, and the Changtang Basin covering an area of about 220,000 square kilometers.
It is difficult to find oil in the same low-lying places, and the task of the oil exploration team is to narrow the scope of the well as much as possible to improve the success rate of the well.
Some experts have predicted that where there are pots, there will be oil, where there are depressions, there will be oil, and the raw oil will run out, just looking for it at the edge of the basin. Because the density of oil is higher than that of water, water goes low and oil flows to high. Like pouring oil in a bowl of water, the oil flower will always float on the edge of the bowl, and it is a consensus to find oil at the edge of the basin, but the difficulty is that not all "bowl edges" have oil flowers, and it still needs to be narrowed.
"Now exploration is close to the oil-producing rock, from hundreds of thousands of square kilometers to a hole." Zhuang Xinbing said, "Look for the south, north, east, west, or middle of the whole basin, the smaller the range, the better." "Exploring a new field, not to fight there is oil, the success rate of drilling is generally 30 to 40 percent, which is like a bet with nature, losing can only leave the market, but if you win, you may not usher in the success of a well."
Jiao Cunli did the study of the direction of sedimentation, and became more aware of the formation of the basin, he said, "There is no oil where we run, and the oil is buried in the basin, under the Great Plains." ”
Exploration team members sample at exploration locations
Exploration team members run wherever they are, like cues left by nature. To find out the specific location of the oil, the oil exploration team members have their own treasure hunting secrets like lieutenants. "After the underground formation runs to the surface, a mountain is formed, and by understanding the stratigraphic situation and structure of the mountain, and the distribution of oilborne rocks in it, it is speculated whether there is oil underground in the exploration site.
Collecting outcrops on the surface is on the one hand, and no matter how deep the research is, it is also necessary to dig wells on site. Taking the core from the well and comparing it with the surface outcrop rock sample, "throughout the geological time, the trajectory of its (oil)'s possible movement should be predicted and predicted." "If you see asphalt on the surface, it shows signs [oil] running by, you can speculate where it might run." ”
In the face of the forces of nature, human beings cannot stop the coming and going of underground oil, "only to run after it." But the movement of oil is relatively slow, "it will run slowly, man-made uncontrollable, will not appear in a short period of time there will be obvious fluctuations, may run a few kilometers after millions of years, in our limited lives do not even feel anything." ”
Find oil
It is also self-aware that what is small is to find oil on the vast land.
In off-the-beaten-track places, finding oil is not an easy task, and after feeling the beauty of the wilderness, the baptism of the body may be snowstorms, long journeys and sample loads, and more dangerous may encounter flash floods, mudslides or tornadoes, circling nature on enigmatic terrain.
In 1981, Jiao Cunli was admitted to Changchun University of Geosciences, and at the beginning of his freshman year, he ran wild with his teacher. The first time out of the wild, "the school issued geological shoes, fur-turned." The clothes were of Vaseline cloth, and when they went up the hill they carried an aluminum lunch box, two steamed buns, a pickle, an egg, and a marching pot with water. ”
Geological exploration during the student period, the danger is small and the difficulty is low, and after participating in the work, it is not the same. For more than 40 years, Jiao Cunli has been on the front line of oil exploration. From the assessment of the field hazard coefficient and the difficulty of exploration, Tarim in Xinjiang cannot be bypassed.
Buried by the wind and sand, the Tarim Basin sleeps in no man's land.
Oil exploration is a more popular work as it gets older, and the accumulation of experience is not only summarized from predecessors, but also more losses in exploration.
"Flash floods are the most dangerous, and once they come, they can't escape, and they must run out of the ravine before the flash floods." When it doesn't rain, it is a drought, and as soon as it rains, it will form a flash flood. Jiao Cunli recalled that he had previously picked up his head in a ravine in Kunlun Mountain, and seeing that the mountain was cloudy, he quickly drove out, the front foot just ran to the mouth of the ravine, and the foot after the flash flood arrived, "The car rushed all the way out, the water chased the butt of the car to run, if you wait for the rain and then run outside, it will be too late." "In the game with nature, often victory or defeat is in a single thought.
In addition to flash floods, mudslides are also common, most of the mountains in Xinjiang are bare, and once it rains, it immediately turns into mud, and mudslides come down quickly. At high altitudes, the situation is more dangerous, in addition to the lack of oxygen, seasonal snowmelt will form a flash flood, once people fall inside and then think out, it is very difficult, "the water is very cold, people go down after the muscle cramps, directly can not come up." ”
Jiao Cunli said that the wild exploration rope is very important, do traction when crossing the river, use the ladder when climbing the mountain, and even use it as a simple stretcher. Every time you go out in the wild, you will also bring a high degree of liquor, the temperature difference between day and night in the western region is large, drink a sip when it is cold, you can make a starter when you cook on the fire, and you can also be used as alcohol when you are injured.
In no man's land, it is common to find a way, and it is difficult to come out again without a tour guide in many places, such as Kuruktag in Xinjiang.
Kuruktag is located in the northeast of the Tarim Basin, which means "arid mountain" in Uyghur and Mongolian, the mountain range stretches for hundreds of miles, and some people have commented that it is like the arm of a giant, together with the Argin Mountains and the Kunlun Mountains, which locked the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin.
"To pick up the head, after driving in, I can't find any markers." The staff of the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology as a guide, with Jiao Cunli and his party still looked for most of the day, "the first day did not work, just look for the outcrop, look at this ditch, that ditch is also like, can not find, with GPS can not find." The stones on the Gobi Desert are all the same. ”
Towering Dabantag
In addition to being lost in the wilderness, it is equally dangerous to climb mountains and get rocks.
"Dasaka Tag is the most dangerous mountain I've ever run." Jiao Cunli described that a very flat place suddenly erected a mountain, the mountain side of the slope of more than 70 degrees, the other side is a steep cliff, there is a slope on the top of the mountain, the slope is smooth, like bluestone slabs, after weathering, the bluestone slabs are full of rubble. The summit is 50 meters above the ground and steep and dangerous.
Jiao Cunli and an experienced member of the team climbed up, "After reaching the top of the mountain, he wants to take samples, and when he knocks on the stone, his feet slip, and people will fall down as soon as they come out." At the critical moment, the prospectors hooked a stone with a geological hammer. The smooth slip of running in the wild is "the hand does not leave the hammer, the hammer does not leave the hand", and the hammer can save lives at key moments.
In 2011, on the towering mountain of Dasaka tag, Li Jianjiao also almost "lost his footing". When descending the mountain, he did not step steadily, and was forced by the inertia of the body to rush straight down from the mountain, because the slope was too steep and too fast, "people can't stop at all." "If he hadn't been thrown down by his teammates in time, Li Jianjiao would have rolled down this 50-meter-high mountain."
Melon peel in the desert
Entering the northwest of the no man's land, the harsh environment can be imagined, Jiao Cunli reminded, especially in the exploration to avoid the occurrence of small probability events.
What is a small probability event, "a mountain greater than 45 degrees is recommended not to go, the steeper the mountain the higher the risk factor; running in the mountain, the broken road does not go, there may be a cliff in front; there is no guide not to go, go in may not be able to get out." ”
Jiao Cunli said, "We can't underestimate the occurrence of small probability events. "The longer you stay in the wild, the more timid and careful you are, and the one percent probability that you may also be one hundred percent dangerous, a consequence that no one can bear." There should be plenty of water, food, and gasoline.
In 2016, Li Jianjiao and his teammates collected outcrops in the Gunjianggou area of the Tarim Basin, and because they were far from the profile location, they needed to camp in the section. The car is parked at the bottom of the mountain, and people have to hike for 3 hours to reach the target point, plan to go to the target location on the first day, work on the second and third days, and turn back on the fourth day.
But on the fourth day of the return trip, it was getting dark, the side of the mountain road was a cliff, the driver did not dare to continue driving, and the group could only camp on the spot. "At night, I cooked everything I could eat, and the next day, dumbfounded, only a handful of 200 grams of noodles was left, cooked for the driver's master, and the others could only go back hungry." Now that I think back, if there were other problems in the back and the car didn't come out, everyone would run out of food.
Hunger may be bearable, but the fear caused by lack of water can destroy a person faster. The desert is uninhabited, like a hungry beast, waiting for the lost.
In the desert, people are better not to leave the road, once lost, water will become the most serious problem. People without desert work experience lose their way, panic, their hearts beat faster, they sweat profusely, and the water in their bodies is quickly depleted. Jiao Cunli said, "Under normal circumstances, the lack of water may last for two days, but in the desert it may not last for one day." ”
Li Jianjiao suggested that the water found in the desert must not be drunk, generally brine. Brine contains a lot of magnesium chloride, magnesium chloride will make protein coagulation, people drink, will lead to hemoglobin coagulation in human blood, "drink people are gone, to put it badly, drinking urine is stronger than drinking that." ”
But in the desert, a casual action may also save a life. Jiao Cunli, for example, is a very simple thing, "The melon skin of the melon eaten in the desert should be buckled on the ground." This simple action is a rule that people who often run the desert and run the Silk Road follow. The melon peel is buttoned down and will not dry for 3 to 5 days. A person who is extremely short of water may be rescued if he picks up this melon peel. ”
Paleontological fossil ammonites
Ancestral imprints
In addition to the sediment deposited over hundreds of millions of years, there are also stories buried under the ancient strata, and every drop of oil is engraved with the imprint of ancestors.
Zhuang recruits often encounter various fish fossils in the field exploration, even trilobites and silicified wood hundreds of millions of years ago. Looking back from this, the sense of substitution of the times is too strong, but it will also feel the smallness of human beings, "It is really a drop in the ocean, and the civilization of human beings has only been thousands of years, and it should better cherish the present." ”
Zhuang Xinbing loves the unexpected surprises of this job, exploring the unknown world, and traveling back and forth between reality and the surreal world. Watching the evolution of ancient organisms all the way to the present, the connection between human beings and the past world is not only engraved in genes or cells, but also we have survived in the same blue sky, the same grassland, and the same ocean. This does not seem to be the concept of time, but more like the overlap of time and space.
Finding oil is equally important for predicting the early environment, from no living to living, oil exploration and paleontological research are in a sense inseparable. "In the field survey, although we know the specific shape of the basin, we also have to predict the early environment, what plants and insects there are."
Bacteria and algae may have been buried first, and the forest collapsed later, along with the animals. Layer after layer, the unrelated creatures hug each other, and the more they sink, the more they can feel the temperature from the earth's core. Like putting fat meat in a pot, the fire under the pot, with constant heating, the meat will become hot and will also produce oil, but the meat will collapse.
"It's a chemical process." Different organisms are heated by geological burial and become the same thing - oil.
But because the mother source is different, the things generated by different organisms are also different. Zhuang Xinbing explained, "From crude oil to asphalt, it is a gradual fragmentation process, but after experimenting with layers of peeling, you can still see what their "ancestors" look like. This is the biomarker compound, which is formed by compound reversal by bacteria and algae, or trees, whether it was deep water or shallow water at that time. ”
After hundreds of millions of years of burial, the oil produced by algae and bacteria is mainly more oil and less gas, wood is more gas and less oil, and the more oil is born in the previous things. But because the mother source is different, the degree of heating is also different, and the raw oil is not the same, "This is a process of coincidence, like a chance encounter, I don't know what chance I met together." ”
Loneliness in a container
Compared with running after oil, Zhuang Xinbing wants to say that he is a wind-chasing teenager, listening to the spirit, running on the road of invincibility, but the reality is sometimes not beautiful.
Jiao Cunli said that every time he came back from the wild, "people became black and fat, and looked like a fool." In the interview, the skin color of the three people was surprisingly consistent, the darkness after full sunlight, and under the foil of a mouth of white teeth, there was a more simple and kind. It may survive in the wild for a long time, and the energy from the wilderness will always be retained in the body, but people will return to the city.
Also no man's land, Changtang and Coco Xili are much more difficult than Coco Xili. Zhuang Xinbing said that driving to "Coco Xili road, but Changtang did not know where the road was." "You can only rely on GPS navigation, you can only see the point you want to go on the geological map, GPS navigation may be a straight line, but in the middle may have to bypass the lake and bypass the mountains." Although there is Noho Station in the middle, the distance between the round and back is too far.
The ecological environment of the no-man's land is fragile and not suitable for survival, but there will still be people who will survive. "Some counties have only one government office, one gas station, two supermarkets, and one hotel, and the rest."
Most places have no trees, sparse meadows, swamps and lakes but mostly salt water with no creatures in sight. Therefore, field exploration support is very important. Organize a field expedition for at least 3 months, medicine, oxygen, food, and even a refrigerator and generator.
Jiao Cunli and Zhuang Xinbing both mentioned vehicle support, and field exploration has extremely high requirements for travel vehicles, requiring vehicles such as land cruisers to support. At least 3 off-road vehicles need to be prepared before each departure, "it's a closed loop, one car is trapped, you need a car to pull, if the second one is also trapped, make sure that a third car can pull everyone to find rescue." Jiao Cunli said that during the exploration of the Tarim Basin, the exploration team's cars often got stuck in swamps or silt, and pulling carts was the norm.
On-site self-help is also very important, Zhuang xinbing explained that there is a saying in the rescue, to carry out self-rescue first, unsuccessful within 24 hours, in order to find rescue. Satellite phones cost 8 yuan per minute, can only be typed and can not be called, but the signal is not so good, although there is danger, but the danger is within the control range.
In addition to overcoming environmental problems, overcoming psychological problems is equally important. After working in the field for a long time, people are inevitably lonely, and they also look at the specific work location.
Wild exploration, most of them are a team of people, Zhuang recruits said, must not stay by themselves, to communicate with people more, to self-guidance, otherwise they will drill the tip of the bull's horn.
But working in the well yard and wanting to talk, there are not so many people. Li Jianjiao had spent some time in the well field before, "There is no one in a few kilometers, you can't run, and the little lizard is the best partner." "The workload of the well site is not large, that is, to ensure the smooth flow of the valve." Everyone lived in a shed like a container, worked three shifts, had few people, ate and slept after work, and rarely chatted. ”
He recalled that he later went to an inoue expedition. A Uighur worker who hadn't spoken to anyone in months because of the language barrier saw the Uyghur driver who came with him, "the tears flowed down, and finally he could speak, and the loneliness was very strong." ”
Difficult questions
What is the difficult question in oil exploration, different people have different answers.
"Doing this job requires love, otherwise it is difficult to stick to it," 40 years of Jiao Cunli still loves this job, "no interest in doing something will be very painful, but interested will continue to do, there is a sense of gain." He believes that the protection of field explorers has always been the focus, and it is necessary to increase the preliminary training of exploration team members and strengthen social security.
"Although the prospecting conditions in the wild are better than in the past, in the wild, they often nibble on steamed buns, pickles and ham sausages." Li Jianjiao feels that it is not a problem for the environment to be better or worse, a little more and a little less, "The personal adaptability of the exploration team members must be very strong." In addition, the prospectors must have a reverence for nature, "can not be a hero, blind squeal will be in trouble." ”
For Zhuang Xinbing, the difficult problems are, one is to reach the blind spot of knowledge, and the other is that he has not made major discoveries in his life.
"Bottlenecks are encountered in the work, people are solidified, and the ideas cannot be opened, which is difficult." What is more difficult is that after more than ten years of searching, no oil was found, no major discoveries were made, and they were not recognized by the industry. So everyone strives to be a voice in the industry. ”
Knowledge blind spots can be filled by acquired efforts, and major discoveries are more of an element of luck.
Oil exploration is inherently risky exploration. But the so-called "risk" in addition to the danger encountered, the probability of successful drilling, the amount of investment, but also includes the time cost invested by the prospectors. For individuals, spending a lifetime searching for the secrets of the underworld and ultimately finding nothing is indeed a cruel thing.
"Everyone's profession is very narrow, and it is necessary to ask others questions. The narrower it is, the more refined it will be, and if it is very general, it will be impetuous. "In the field of oil exploration, everyone is engaged in different directions of research, there are volcanic eruptions, there are snowball events, and celestial rotation, as long as it can cause ecological changes, it will be included in this circle." Zhuang Xinbing understands that everyone has their own place, has their own value, and needs to contribute.
Since 1975, there have been many people in oil exploration projects in the Tarim Basin. Oil and gas exploration in the Changtang Basin is even later, and Zhuang Hopes to make some results. Next year, the Changtang project team has plans to explore the far northwest, and Zhuang recruits need to spend more time preparing.
Before exploring in the no-man's land of Changtang, sometimes needing to camp in the wild, he recalled, setting up a tent is a big taboo, and at night everyone will sleep in a car surrounded by tin. Because wild animals are fierce. When the night comes, a fire is built, everyone eats and chats together, and when it is cold, they will drink some wine to warm up.
The moon rose late at night, and the tired team members fell asleep in the car, and there was a loud purr in the wilderness.