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Earth

China started drilling ultra-deep holes in 2023 in a hunt for oil

A drilling project in the Taklamakan desert is aiming to reach more than 11,000 metres below Earth’s surface as China explores the deep earth for resources

By James Dinneen

24 December 2023

The Shendi Take 1 drilling site in Xinjiang, China, in May 2023

Xinhua/Shutterstock

This year, the China National Petroleum Corporation started drilling what will be the deepest hole in China and be among the deepest holes in the world, in the north-western province of Xinjiang.

An announcement in May from China’s state-run news agency Xinhua said the project was “an unprecedented opportunity to study areas of the planet deep beneath the surface”, drilling down more than 11,000 metres into the billion-year-old strata of the remote Taklamakan desert.

The project’s more…

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