The exploration in Daqing begun in 1955. Daqing oilfield—the globally giant oilfield was discovered by the commercial oil flow found in well Songji 3 in Datong Town of Zhaozhou county, Heilongjiang province on Sept.26, 1959. According to the proposal made by OuYangxin, the secretary of Heilongjiang Provincial CPC Committee at that time, the field was named as “Daqing oilfield” as regarded as a special tribute for the tenth anniversary of National Day.

Its production capacity reached 600×104 t/a in 1963 and the oil production was 439×104 t the same year, playing a crucial role for the realization of self-sufficient supply of oil in China. With the annual production’s breakthrough at 5000×104 t in 1976, Daqing oilfield became the No.1 large oilfield among all those in China. So far, 28 various oilfields have been proven with an oil bearing area of 413,137 km2, a proven OOIP reserve of 56×108 t, twenty five oilfields such as Shaertu, Xinshugang and Lamadian under development completely or partially and an accumulative oil production up to 15.16×108 t.

Daqing oilfield has a glorious history over past forty years. It has created a miracle in the development history of analogue oil fields in the world with its high yield stable over 5X107 t/a for twenty-seven years. Its exploration and development along with the important projects of “Two bombs and one satellite” have been recorded in the history of science and technology development in China.

During development and construction, Daqing oilfield has cultivated the Daqing spirit represented mainly by “ Patriotism, Pioneer, Realistic and Contribution”, the Iron Man spirit and some excellent traditional practices such as “Three honest and four rigorous” and “Four identical” and fostered a number of outstanding talents represented by iron man - Wang Jinxi and another iron man in the new period -Wang Qimin.

The yearly production has been stabilized over 5.0 x 107 t in Daqing oilfield since 1976, which made the development technology for the heterogeneous and multi-layered continental sandstone reservoirs up to the most advanced level in the world, demonstrating the ability of Daqing’s workers in scientific research. Daqing oilfield has brought forward a new goal of exploration in the coming five years, namely development in three main fields, breakthrough in five new areas, entering two markets and realizing the target of “5451”. Specifically, it is to realize additionally increases of 500 million t possible OOIP reserves, 400 million t probable OOIP reserves, 50 million t proven recoverable reserves as well as 100 BCM OGIP in order to provide resource support for the sustainable development.