The Role of the Two "Dragons" in the East from the Outer Borders--West Pipeline Project of the Key Works of the "Tenth Five-year Plan"
The western pipeline project starts in Urumqi, Xinjiang in the west and Lanzhou, Gansu Province in the east.
On November 15, the reporter saw the construction site of the first station of Wangjiagou refined oil 35 kilometers northwest of Xinjiang Urumqi. This important oil station has basically been completed. The reporter saw the station chief Han Wei at the first stop site. The station manager said that the first station covers an area of ​​140,000 square meters and has 8 product oil storage tanks, of which 5 are newly built and the remaining 3 are old tanks in the Wangjiagou oil depot. Among the five new oil tanks, four are 30,000 cubic meters, one is 20,000 cubic meters, and three old tanks are 20,000 cubic meters with a total reserve of 200,000 cubic meters. The first station is divided into pump zone, valve zone zone, heating zone, tank zone, station control zone and substation according to function. In the pump area, the reporter saw four large German-made oil pumps called heart devices already installed on the reinforced concrete cast pedestal, waiting to be put into operation.
The reporter watched on a five-story storage tank and saw the east side of the first station is a tank farm at the Wangjiagou Depot. On the west is a Sino-Hong Kong joint venture oil depot. On the south side is the railway line dedicated to the Wangjiagou Depot, and on the north is Urumqi to Xinjiang’s largest August steel plant highway. The characteristics of the first stop are very prominent, the terrain is obviously higher than the surrounding, and the surrounding is basically a wasteland. Han Webmaster said that from a safe production point of view, the oil depot should be built in this position.
Xu Chunjiang, director of the Xinjiang Administration Department of China National Petroleum Corporation, told reporters that when selecting the site for the first oil product site, it was considered that relying on the local facilities of CNPC in Urumqi as much as possible could save significant investment in construction. The Wangjiagou oil depot owned by the Xinjiang Oilfield Company has been operating safely for many years and its status is appropriate. The first station for the transportation of refined oil is built in the oil depot, and resources such as land, water, electricity, and railway lines can all be supported, thereby reducing the cost of establishing the station.
As the western pipeline project is currently the longest pipeline in China, and the topography and geomorphology of the two provinces in Xinjiang and Gansu, where the pipeline is passing through, is very complex, the construction is very difficult. According to Zhang Wenxin, director of the Gansu Management Office of China National Petroleum Corporation, there are 19 counties and cities in the Gansu Province, including Gobi, deserts, swamps, Wutipling with an altitude of 3,000 meters, 3 national nature reserves, and loess gully. Although the difficulties were numerous and the project construction was not fully rolled out since March 2005, by November 18, 98% of the finished oil pipeline construction had been completed, and 78% of the crude oil pipelines had been completed. This construction speed is in the history of China’s oil pipeline construction. It is very rare. In addition, pioneering attempts have also been made in the construction of western pipelines, such as 'directional drilling through the mountain technology' and 'earth pressure balance horizontal pipe jacking'. The TP2000 earth pressure balance jacking machine is used to cross the Dashagou sand stone plant and the asphalt mixing station, and the directional drilling is used to cross the Lanlian 301 pump room. The ground construction or industrial enterprises encountered in the construction can not be relocated but must pass the pipeline. The problem was to use directional drills to cross Renshou Mountain to protect the fragile ecological environment in the western region and retain a rare green color. The German DD-990 drilling rig used in these crossing projects is currently the largest drilling rig used by CNPC. At present, the pipeline product pipelines in the west are undergoing trials of pressure and sweeping water, and the construction of stations and valve rooms is also under intense tension. All the participants in the pipeline are rushing towards the end of the year with the production conditions of the refined oil pipelines.
It is reported that after the completion of the western pipeline project, 10 million tons of refined oil and 20 million tons of crude oil can be exported annually. According to the calculation of a 60-ton truck, it can save 150,000 knots of light oil and 300,000 kilograms of viscous (heavy) oil railway tank wagons, which greatly eases the pressure on western railway transportation.