Daqing Oil Field

The Daqing Oil Field (simplified Chinese: 大庆油田; traditional Chinese: 大慶油田; pinyin: Dàqìng Yóutián), formerly romanized as "Taching",[1][2] is the largest oil field in the People's Republic of China, located between the Songhua river and Nen River in Heilongjiang province. When the Chinese government began to use to pinyin for romanization, the field's name became known as Daqing.

Daqing Oil Field
Main Building of Daqing Oil Field Co. Ltd.
Location of Daqing Oil Field
Country	China
Region	Heilongjiang province
Offshore/onshore	Onshore
Coordinates	46.60°N 124.90°E / 46.60; 124.90
Operator	Daqing Oilfield Company Limited
Field history
Discovery	1959
Start of production	1960
Production
Estimated oil in place	16,000 million barrels (~2.2×10^9 t)
Recoverable oil	3,600 million barrels (~4.9×10^8 t)

Discovered in 1959 by Li Siguang, Wang Jinxi (who led No. 1205 drilling team) worked on this oilfield. This field has produced over 10 billion barrels (1.6×10^⁹ m³) of oil since production started in 1960. Daqing contained 16 billion barrels (2.5×10^⁹ m³) or 2.2 billion tons in the beginning; the remaining recoverable reserves are about 3.6 billion barrels (570×10^⁶ m³) or 500 million tons. Due to the rapid increases in production in its early days, Daqing was lauded by China's state media as a model industrial enterprise throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The current production rate is about 1 million barrels per day (160×10^³ m³/d), making it the fourth most productive oil field in the world. It is reputed that during the first two decades of the life of the field, as much as 90% of the oil was wasted.[3]

Daqing Oilfield Company Limited, based in Daqing, is the operator of exploration and development of Daqing Oilfield. From 2004, the company plans to cut its crude oil output by an annual 7% for the next seven years to extend the life of Daqing.[4]

Output of barrels of oil equivalent of the Daqing Field remained stable at over 40 million tons in 2012, while output at Changqing oil field was over 42 million tons, making it the most productive oil and gas field in China.[5]