Daqing oilfield, China's largest oilfield in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, will turn to build a green oilfield, said Wang Pingtai, deputy director of Public Relations Department of Daqing Oilfield Co Ltd, on June 9.

An oil well newly drilled by the 1205 Drilling Crew in Daqing oilfield, Heilongjiang Province, on June 9. It took the team four to five days to finish drilling an oil well after exploration.

"We should balance the relation between resources exploitation and environmental protection in the oilfield," said Wang, adding they should not develop the oilfield at the price of environment pollution.

Statistics show Daqing oilfield has over 60,000 oil wells, and produces 400 million cubic meters of oil sewage and six billion cubic meters of flue gas annually. Environmental protection in the field is a tough job.

However, Daqing oilfield is adopting comprehensive measures to protect the environment via green construction.

Daqing oilfield has built the largest domestic industrial sewage treatment system and the largest industrial sewage treatment sample unit in the world. The harmless treatment of industry wastes reaches 100 percent, and the green ratio stands at 19.8 percent, which helped Daqing City win the honor of Environmental Protection Model City, the only reward for inland cities.

During the period from 2000 to 2005, the comprehensive energy consumption in Daqing oilfield dropped 550,000 coal equivalents although the oil wells were increased to more than 20,000 units.

The ageing Daqing oilfield, which has been in operation for 47 years, realized an output of more than 50 million tons per year since 1976. It maintained this level until 2003, and it pumped out more than 10.6 million tons of crude oil and 670 million cubic meters of natural gas in the first quarter of this year, basically the same as that of the same period last year.

(China Daily June 10, 2007)