【Ten Years of Great Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】2,090 meters of the Lan-Zheng-Chang crude oil pipeline crossing the Yangtze River from 1973 to 2011

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This post was last edited by Desert Fish on December 24, 2022, at 15:31. Witnessing the ten-year development of chemical processing equipment, we celebrate the prosperity and strength of modern China. This is just a starting point; we welcome everyone to participate more in discussions on this forum – the more people involved, the more lively it becomes. Haichuan becomes even better with you here. Replies are rewarded; feel free to discuss! ------------------------------------------------- On December 16, 2011, the highly anticipated directional drilling project to pass beneath the Yangtze River for China National Petroleum Corporation’s Lan-Zheng-Chang oil pipeline was completed, setting a new record in China for directional drilling through gravelly and sand-gravelly strata, with a depth of 2,090 meters. 　　The Yangtze River rock crossing project for the Lan-Zheng-Chang crude oil pipeline is located between Shuangliu Town in Xinzhou District, Wuhan City, and Baihu Town in Ezhou City, Hubei Province. Previously, two shallow crossings were attempted at this location, but both times the pipes ruptured due to disturbances in the riverbed during the Yangtze River’s flood season; as a result, it was decided to switch from crossing through the sand layer to crossing through the deeper rock layers. 　　On September 24, 2010, drilling commenced for the Yangtze River rock tunnel, with a penetration depth of 75 meters; the main strata encountered were conglomerate and sand-conglomerate. Conglomerate is very hard, with a compressive strength as high as 59.7 MPa, whereas sandstone conglomerate is extremely fragile, with a compressive strength as low as 0.13 MPa. Geological experts say that carrying out directional drilling under such exceptionally complex geological conditions is of a world-class difficulty. 　　In the face of these challenges, the personnel from the Crossing Company of China National Petroleum Pipeline Bureau carefully formulated a construction plan, and on November 20, 2010, they successfully completed the crossing of the optical cable ducts laid in the same trench. On December 24, 2010, drilling began on the main pipeline. The company used a large drill rig to perform reverse pulling and bring the drill pipe back to the original hole. At the same time, the reaming process, mud properties, and drill string combinations were further optimized to enable continuous reaming operations thereafter. However, due to extremely complex geology, the three rounds of hole enlargement took over 10 months. 　　On the afternoon of December 15 this year, the final step in the directional drilling process – pipeline retraction – began. After nearly 20 hours of \"arduous journey,\" the pipeline emerged from the other side of the Yangtze River, marking the successful completion of the Lan-Zheng-Chang Yangtze River crossing.