#精品长文创作季#
In today's world, the development of all countries is inseparable from oil. It can be said that whichever country has sufficient oil reserves will be able to seize the opportunity in the new round of development. When oil becomes a scarce resource, countries have to focus on "heavy oil".
At this time, China has once again become the focus of attention. Due to the huge amount of heavy oil it possesses, there is speculation about whether China will become a second Saudi Arabia.
Countries have different attitudes towards this statement, but does the mainland have such heavy oil reserves? After reading this article, we will take you to find the answer.
1. What exactly is heavy oil?
When it comes to heavy oil, we have to talk about what exactly oil is. Oil is closely related to the development of the country, and it can be said that it is impossible to move an inch without oil.
Oil has a wide range of uses, and it can be described as a treasure. Oil can decompose many gaseous fuels, which have many advantages whether they are used in machinery and equipment or in daily life.
Second, oil can also be broken down into gasoline that can be used in cars. Although new energy vehicles are developing relatively well, oil vehicles still occupy most of the automobile market. I can't imagine that without gasoline, these cars would only be treated as a pile of scrap metal.
Moreover, the asphalt we use to pave the road is actually decomposed from petroleum. The asphalt pavement is flatter than the cement pavement, without too many uneven undulations, and these pavements are more elastic and less abrasive to the vehicle tires.
In addition, oil certainly has many uses, which shows that we are indeed inseparable from this resource in our lives. However, oil is a non-renewable resource, and it takes thousands or even tens of thousands of years for oil to be formed.
Obviously, the world is now in a critical period of development, and the demand for oil is very large, and there is simply not enough time to wait for oil to be regenerated.
It is precisely because of Saudi Arabia's abundant oil resources that the economy of the whole country is so developed. In a way, oil is more precious than gold.
Unfortunately, the day will come when oil will run out, and when that time comes, what fuel should we use instead of oil? That's heavy oil.
Petroleum is divided into many forms, and some petroleum is relatively light, which is what we consider to be high-quality oil. These oils are relatively high in purity and are everyone's first choice.
Then there is a thicker and harder oil, which is essentially oil, but in order to distinguish it from high-quality oil, the name heavy oil was taken.
Heavy oil is also known as "black amber" because it is relatively hard, which means that it is very precious. Compared to heavy oil, there are two aspects that should not be overlooked.
First of all, the purity of heavy oil is relatively low, and heavy oil can of course be refined into oil. But ordinary oil can decompose into a variety of substances, fuels, bitumen and other materials.
The availability of these oils is very high, but for heavy oil, of course, there is not such a high availability, if it is not for the lack of oil resources, people may not think of developing heavy oil.
Secondly, the extraction of heavy oil is very difficult. Heavy oil is characterized by smelly, hard and black, and it is several times more difficult to extract than oil.
It takes so much effort and energy, but can only extract heavy oil with such a low precision content, no matter how you look at it, it is not cost-effective for oil.
Therefore, at first, everyone was actually reluctant to exploit heavy oil, but now that the oil reserves of various countries have declined, they have to start planning to exploit heavy oil.
When heavy oil is concerned, then the resources of the whole world seem to have begun a new round of division. It's no secret that Saudi Arabia's oil reserves give them confidence to the whole world.
So in other words, which country has a relatively high heavy oil content now, is it possible to grasp the right to speak about oil in the near future?
2. Will China become the second Saudi Arabia?
China is once again in the spotlight, but because of its abundant heavy oil reserves. Once upon a time, China was also very rich in oil.
At that time, China was still a major oil exporter. But soon, everyone realized the preciousness of oil, coupled with the sharp decline in domestic oil reserves, China also became an "oil-poor country".
Today, China imports a large amount of oil every year to meet the country's development needs and strategic reserves. Unexpectedly, everyone set their eyes on heavy oil.
In fact, the world's heavy oil reserves are already much higher than the amount of oil. According to statistics, heavy oil accounts for more than 70% of the total content of global oil resources.
And of these seventy percent, they are divided into several large groups of people, which are stored in these countries. The first is Venezuela, a small country that accounts for about half of the world's heavy oil content.
And half of the remaining half is owned by Canada. The rest is also occupied by Russia, China and the United States.
In addition to the previous domestic oil exploitation by these countries, China's heavy oil reserves are among the highest in the world.
This makes everyone wonder if China will really be the next Saudi Arabia. The prosperity of Saudi Arabia is obvious to all, and it holds the lifeblood of oil and affects the development prospects of various countries.
Saudi Arabia also relies on this advantage, not only has a strong voice in the world, but also has a good domestic economic situation.
Every time he makes a big move, what the country lacks or what technology is needed for development, he will take money and throw it at the other party, who doesn't envy such a "trench inhumane" way of dealing with it?
However, the development situation of Saudi Arabia and China is different, and taking China as an example, according to the current national strength and international status, Saudi Arabia still has a long way to go.
Second, judging from the current international situation, China is in a very delicate state, and its relationship with both the United States and Russia is thought-provoking.
Although Saudi Arabia has abundant oil resources, according to the overall strength, everyone will not worry too much, only whether they can establish a friendly oil trade with Saudi Arabia.
But once China relies on its own "heavy oil" content to become the second Saudi Arabia, then the entire international situation will change.
When a country with such terrifying strength controls one of the world's most scarce resources, how can other countries not be afraid?
Therefore, whether China will become the second Saudi Arabia is a very important question, in terms of the current heavy oil reserves, China does have the possibility of becoming a major country in heavy oil reserves.
But there is a very serious problem to face, that is, the extraction of heavy oil. It is not the first time that people have discovered heavy oil, and the reason why it has not been developed in large quantities until now is because it is very difficult to exploit.
China has also tried many times, but the results have not been satisfactory.
Third, heavy oil exploitation technology is difficult to overcome
As early as the discovery of heavy oil resources, China has begun a series of exploitation work for heavy oil resources, but it has still not been able to overcome this technical problem.
Heavy oil is characterized by its hardness, which makes it very difficult to extract. Transporting heavy oil from the ground to the surface requires a lot of manpower and financial resources.
Seven years ago, Chinese statistics showed that the cost of extracting a barrel of heavy oil was about $50, but at that time the cost of extracting a barrel of heavy oil in the United States was only $15.
It is clear that China does not have much of an advantage in oil extraction. This does not mean that China's technology is far behind that of the United States, but that China's thick oil fields are inherently very difficult to exploit.
For example, the Xinjiang oilfield, which is rich in heavy oil reserves in China, can be exploited in the forefront of several hard-to-exploit oilfields in the world.
At that time, China felt that oil resources were relatively scarce, so it began to plan to exploit heavy oil. The heavy oil reserves of Xinjiang oilfield are relatively rich, and its purity is relatively good, so it was decided to start here.
In order to plan the exploitation of Xinjiang's oil fields, the state specially invited several world-famous oil extraction teams to come and investigate.
As a result, these top teams have come to a unified conclusion, that is, according to the current technology, the Xinjiang oil field cannot be exploited.
Despite this disappointing result, the state did not give up and established more than a dozen experimental mining fields in the Xinjiang oil fields.
In view of the different problems that have arisen, the work of exploiting the Xinjiang oil fields has finally begun. Soon, the next question arises, how to transport the extracted heavy oil?
The traditional technology relies on pipeline transportation, but the texture of heavy oil is too hard, this traditional way is not only inefficient, but also very labor-intensive and material-intensive, and the cost of extracting heavy oil is too high.
In order to solve this problem, the mainland currently uses the method of injecting steam into the heavy oil, which is fused into the heavy oil to help it dilute.
When these heavy oils are diluted to a certain extent, they can be extracted in the same way as oil.
With this technology, the recovery of heavy oil has been significantly increased, and the exploitation of other oil fields has also been put on the agenda.
epilogue
At present, China's heavy oil can replace part of the domestic demand for oil, but it still cannot completely leave oil. China's abundance of "heavy oil" reserves is not a bad thing for the country and the world.
China's heavy oil reserves have eased domestic demand for oil, which is used in the mainland's aerospace sector and in the production of many military enterprises.
At the same time, these heavy oils have also eased the world's tight demand for oil. It is believed that after several years of development, China's heavy oil extraction technology can be upgraded to a higher level, not only to meet its own domestic needs, but also to export to other countries at that time.
Reference Links
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1798555546804097372&wfr=spider&for=pc
Liaohe Oilfield: The "First Shot" of the Green Revolution in Heavy Oil Thermal Recovery-China Petroleum News-2024-05-09
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1798464447879784046&wfr=spider&for=pc
Shengli Oilfield Promotes Efficient Development of Offshore Heavy Oil-Sinopec Official-2024-05-08