泵站工作人员确保运输安全

The ongoing 2015 Pacific Energy Summit is focusing on strengthening markets for energy and environmental security. A stable market needs a solid energy supply, and that makes energy transportation highly important. CCTV’s Tang Bo went to Qinghai Oil Field in Northwest China to find out how oil transportation safety is ensured.

Just a daily routine. Cheng Yong has been working at the Gansen Heat Pump Station for 24 years. His job is to make sure petroleum going through the pump station will reach its next stop smoothly and safely.

"What we do at the station is to heat and pressurize petroleum. Heating will make the petroleum less sticky and lower the risk of blocking the pipeline, while pressurizing makes the petroleum go faster and further, which increases the transported volume." Cheng said.

Gansen Heat Pump Station is located in the west of Qaidam Basin in Northwest China’s Qinghai Province.

It is one of five heat pump stations along the pipeline connecting the oil fields in Huatugou and the city of Golmud.

High altitude and the hundreds of kilometers of desolation make life here difficult.

Although the new national road that stretches along the pipeline has connected the workers with the outside world,. And the automation equipment has eased their work some.

Challenges remain.

"The automation equipment is both a good and bad thing. If something big happens, we wouldn’t have enough experience to deal with those machines. Besides, my colleagues and I still need time and have to work hard to learn how to use the highly technical equipment," Cheng said.

Working in such a harsh environment, people here have been making extra efforts to ensure that the petroleum from the last station will be well heated, pressurized, and then sent to the next stop. Transportation safety is the top priority before the oil ends up in its destination.

270 kilometers east from the station is the Golmud Refinery where the pipeline ends. It is the major oil supply unit and the only place where crude oil is processed in the Tibetan Plateau. The deadly earthquake which struck Nepal and part of China's Tibet Autonomous Region in April has put the refinery in the spotlight.

"Right after the earthquake, we rearranged our production and sales plans to increase the output. The daily refined oil production had been increased from around 3,900 tons to more than 4,200 tons during that period of time to meet the need in the quake-hit area in Tibet," Wu Jianguo, dept. head of Golmud Refinery, said.

Up till the end of April, the refinery provided more than 10,000 tons of diesel fuel to the Shigatse city in Tibet.

A number that highlights the significance of Cheng’s work. His 24 years of work has never once put the oil supply chain in danger. Cheng says he is old now.

And what he needs to do is to pass on all his experience and knowledge to his trainees so they can shoulder the responsibility of ensuring safe oil transportation as soon as possible.