Karamy oilfield is based in Karamy city and lies at the west-northern margin of Junggar basin. Junggar basin is karamay oilfield’s major target for exploration and development, which has abundant oil and gas resources with a possible OOIP and OGIP of 86X108t and 2.1X1012 m3 respectively. At present, the proven oil and gas reserves account only for 21% and less than 2% of the total reserves respectively. With its extensive exploration prospect and great potential for development, Karamy oilfield is really a strategic successor of petroleum resources for the realization of “stabilizing east and developing west” in Chinese petroleum industry.

Oil and gas exploration in Karamy oilfield begun in 1951. Karamy oilfield became the first large oilfield in new China as a result of the commercial oil flow found in well Karamy 1 on Oct.29, 1955. With the tremendous hard working of generations for half century, a series of important achievements have been obtained for exploration and development in Junggar basin. As Karamy oilfield was discovered and has been developed since mid-50’s last century, Xinjiang has become an important base for petroleum industry and petroleum & its processing has become one of the backbone industries in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. At present, its accumulative proven OOIP is 17.6X108t and OGIP 629.3X108m3. Totally 25 oil and gas fields have been constructed and developed one after another, including Baikouquan, Cainan, Shixi, Hutubi and Luliang. With a yearly production of 870×104 t in total. It has been ranked in the fourth place consecutively for 13 years among all the Chinese onshore oilfields, realizing a sustained growth steadily for 23 years.

At 12 o’clock, Dec. 22, 2002, the target of annual oil production of 1X107 t was reached in PetroChina Xinjiang Oilfield Company, announcing the birth of the first oilfield with ten million ton productivity in the western China. Xinjiang Oilfield Company has made a historical leap from the first oilfield in new China to the first large oilfield with ten million ton productivity in the western China.

With the breakthrough of ten million ton in annual production, it has realized the first step of the “three steps” target set up by PetroChina Xinjiang Oilfield Company, which is an important milestone in its development history. The second step is targeted to have an annual production of 1200X104t oil and 30X108m3 gas in 2005 while the target in the third step is to reach an annual production of 15X106 t oil and 50X108m3 gas in 2010.