China begins drilling 11km hole into Earth’s crust, search for oil and gas

Major international oil and gas business China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has confirmed its participation in the countries deepest ever bore hole.

According to official Chinese news agency Xinhua Global Service, the test borehole of up to 11,000 metre will be used to identify potential new oil and gas deposits.

CNPC says that alongside potential petroleum exploration, the borehole is also being drilled to help better understand the Earth’s internal structure better, along with testing underground drilling techniques.

Identified by CNPC as new breakthrough in domestic deep earth exploration technology, the scientific exploration well recently spudded in the Tarim Basin, Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous.

The borehole has been designed to drill through 10 layers of Earth at the deepest point of the Tarim Basin.

Current deepest hole on Earth

If the current Chinese borehole hits a designed depth of 11,000 metres, it will rank as one of the deepest ever.

In 1970, the old Soviet regime drilled the Kola Superdeep Borehole. Also designed as a scientific drilling project, it was reported that Kola Superdeep reached a depth of 12,262 metres.

That borehole was drilled near the Russian border with Norway, on the Kola Peninsula.

In 2008, an Al Shaheen Oil Field oil and gas well was reported to have achieved a record petroleum well depth of 12,289 metres.