Oil is known as the "blood of industry", although scientists have not yet figured out the oil-forming mechanism of oil, that is, whether it is non-renewable biological sediment to become oil, or a renewable resource generated from carbon in the earth's crust. No conclusion yet.

However, if there is no oil, the most direct point is that most of the world's planes, trains, ships and other means of transportation will be out of service. In addition to the "11 bus" to go to work, I am afraid that you can only change to horses, donkeys, and electric bicycles. .

According to a statistical data from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the daily oil consumption in the world is about 100 million barrels, and it shows a trend of increasing year by year. What kind of concept is this?

The unit "barrel" of the common unit of international crude oil, 1 barrel of crude oil is equal to 0.137 tons, so the world consumes 1370 tons of oil every day, and the world consumes 500,050,000 tons of oil every year, you are right, it is close to 5.1 billion tons .

In terms of apparent oil consumption of the world's major economies, the top five are: the United States is close to 1.05 billion tons, mainland China is about 650 million tons, India is 250 million tons, Japan is 240 million tons, and Russia is 160 million tons. Conservative calculations The oil consumption of these five countries accounts for about 46.1% of the total global consumption, and China has become the world's second largest oil importer, with about half of it dependent on imports.

One of the U.S. oil reserves

However, there is a place in the world that clearly stores 3.5 billion tons of oil, but no one dares to exploit it. This is Dawaza, a village located in the Karakum Desert of Turkmenistan, also known as the "Gate of Hell". It is how it happened?

All this has to start with a geological exploration drilling in the former Soviet Union in 1971.

In 1971, when geologists from the former Soviet Union came to Turkmenistan, one of the republics, they were drilling in the Karakum Desert, about 260 kilometers north of Ashgabat. 70 meters, more than 30 meters deep in the pit.

And a pungent odor continued to emerge from the pit, and experts concluded that the gas was likely to be natural gas. The main component of natural gas is alkane, of which the content of methane is more than 95%, and its greenhouse effect is almost 20 times that of carbon dioxide. It will reduce the surrounding air and lead to increased evaporation, affecting nearby villagers and people who are already scarce. survival of plants and animals.

How to deal with the leaked natural gas?

In order to prevent further leakage of natural gas, the accompanying experts thought of a simple and rude method, throwing an incendiary bomb directly into the pit to burn the leaked natural gas.

Moreover, according to the situation of the collapsed crater, the expert group estimates that the leaked natural gas will be burnt out in a few days.

A week later, the expert group took the detection equipment to check the natural gas content near the big pit, and found that the concentration had not decreased at all, and the fire had never been extinguished since the moment it was ignited, one month, one year, five days. Years, ten years...it's been burning for 50 years now with no sign of going out.

According to conservative estimates, in the past 50 years, a large amount of natural gas and oil have been burned in vain, and the loss is close to 100 billion US dollars. It seems that impulse is the devil, and the punishment of impulse is so direct and heavy.

Since then, this fire pit in the Karakum Desert has a new name - the gate of hell, and the blazing unquenchable fire is also called "hell's fire".

Karakum Desert, rich in oil and gas reserves

The Karakum Desert is located in Turkmenistan on the east bank of the Caspian Sea and west of the Amu Darya River, with a total area of ​​350,000 square kilometers (China's Taklimakan Desert covers an area of ​​about 330,000 square kilometers). Controlled by air mass, it belongs to temperate continental arid climate.

In addition, the terrain here is relatively flat, which is not conducive to the formation of topographic rain. The average annual rainfall is less than 200 mm. Except for oases along the Amu Darya, Tejan River, and Murgab River, the rest are basically invisible. side of the desert.

Although most of this desert is a barren land, it is an area with large reserves of sulfur, oil, natural gas and other resources. The proven oil reserves are 3.5 billion tons, and the proven natural gas reserves are close to 50 trillion. cubic meters, natural gas reserves account for about 1/10 of the world's total reserves, ranking fifth in the world. Such large-scale natural gas reserves are not a problem for most Gulf countries to crush.

After all, the total population of Turkmenistan is only about 5.62 million, and the per capita GDP is close to 7,000 US dollars, which is still far behind some developed countries. However, after several decades, why didn't Turkmenistan try to put out the burning sinkhole and extract the oil and natural gas buried under it? This is the only convenient way for them to compete with rich countries such as the Middle East and even Europe and the United States!

Why is the oil in the desert not dared to be exploited?

In fact, although Turkmenistan is one of the driest regions in the world, due to its rich reserves of oil and gas resources, the oil and gas industry is the pillar industry of the country, while the valleys and canals in the south develop wheat, cotton planting and animal husbandry.

But why didn't they put out the fire in the tiankeng first, give priority to exploiting the oil and gas resources there, and let it burn in vain?

In fact, this is mainly related to Turkmenistan's geopolitical environment, geographical location and its own development capabilities.

First , before the "separation", Turkmenistan was one of the republics of the Soviet Union, and the large-scale oil exploitation was mainly "domestic sales", so it soon became the main energy supply base of the former Soviet Union, and the oil and gas industry developed rapidly.

However, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan has been under the absolute control of Russia for a long time, whether it is the export market or the export channel. As a result, the export of oil and natural gas has been greatly affected. difficult times.

The oil and gas resources in some regions with better geographical locations have not yet been developed, and the oil and natural gas in desert areas are even more "unexplored".

Second , Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It is adjacent to the Caspian Sea to the west and borders Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Iran, with a total land area of ​​491,210 square kilometers. Because there is no outlet to the sea, the oil produced cannot be transported by tankers with large capacity, long distances and low cost.

However, if road-rail combined transportation or pipeline transportation is used, it is necessary to transit neighboring countries to reach resource-consuming countries, which will greatly increase transportation costs and lose competitiveness. Compare.

Third , the climate of Turkmenistan is arid, especially in the Karakum Desert in the north-central part. Not only is the temperature difference between day and night extremely large, but also rivers and lakes are scarce. In the development of deep oil fields, because the density of oil is lower than that of water, in order to exploit deep oil more conveniently, oil workers need to inject a large amount of water into oil wells to increase the height of the underground oil surface.

Fourth , it is not easy to put out the fire of hell that has been burning for half a century. It is extremely difficult to put out a fire, which requires a lot of investment and may not achieve the expected effect, especially the leakage of gas. Difficult to block.

As early as several years after the fire of hell, the Soviets thought of using the method of detonating a nuclear bomb to crack the rock formation with huge energy, so as to block the leakage of natural gas, and also to test the power of the nuclear bomb, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone. , but was opposed by most experts.