The former well vault. [Photo/epaper.kelamayi.com.cn]

Karamay in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is an oil city where oil wells and oil rigs can frequently be seen. Yet an oil well near the Dushanzi district has special significance for the city.

It was the first oil well in Karamay.

In 1909, Xinjiang government bought drills from Russia and dug out a 25-meter-deep oil well, where the oil gushed out and rose. People could hear the sound of waves according to historical records.

However, the oil well had to be abandoned due to circumstances of the time after a while.

The former site of Xinjiang’s first distillation center. [Photo/epaper.kelamayi.com.cn]

In May 1951, when China-Soviet Union Petroleum Corporation started to develop Dushanzi oilfield for the second time, that well of great historical value was sealed off for preservation.

The local bureau of cultural relics also built a monument for the well and listed it as a cultural conservation zone in order to mark the very origin of the oil industry.

The monument is only 100 meters away from Dushanzi Oil Refinery, a major factory in Karamay whose annual output reaches 10 million ton. Those 100 meters, however, represent 100 years of development of Xinjiang's oil industry.

A photographer takes photos for the bubbling wellhead. [Photo/epaper.kelamayi.com.cn]

Edited by Mevlut Katik