Petroleum workers in China has begun the sinking of an oil well with a designed depth of 8,400 meters, at Tahe Oilfield in Tarim Basin, in southern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Upon completion, the oil well, named as Tashen No. 1 well, will be the deepest of the kind in the whole of Asia, according to sources from its developer, the Northwest Company of Sinopec Corp, the country's largest producer and marketer of oil products.

The corporate sources cited the drilling as aimed to delve into the geological structure of the in-depth strata with Tahe Oilfield, where the potential for petroleum reserve is estimated at 1.2 billion tons, with the sinking of the new oil well.

Tahe Oilfield, situated at the northern fringe of the Tarim Basin, is proven to have  the reserve of 530 million tons of petroleum and 59 billion cubic meters of gas resources, with a cylinder-shape distribution form taken shape.

The oilfield plans to turn out 4.2 million tons of crude this year and hopes to attain a production capability of 10 million tons by the year 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2005)