An Expatriate, and A Research Backbone

A fter his graduation with a U.S. PhD degree in 2013,
Wei Chenji was immediately enrolled by RIPED of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). He was quickly deployed to the Middle East projects undertaken by the Oilfield Development Institute due to his excellent professional skills and proficiency in English. Within just seven years, Wei was promoted from a “freshman” to the Director of the Abu Dhabi Project of
Development Institute.
I n the same year Wei was hired, the Oilfield Development Institute undertook the technical support work for the development of Rumaila Oilfield. Rumaila is a massive oilfield in Iraq, with a geological reserve up to approximately 9 billion tons. Iraq opened its oilfields to the international market in 2009 for the first time after the war; CNPC joined hands with BP plc, won the bid and signed a development technical service agreement for Rumaila, whose technical support work was undertaken by Oilfield
end market in Abu Dhabi, where it would have direct competition with renowned international players such as BP plc and Total for the position of NEB Asset Leader. The success of application would not only enable CNPC to receive an asset leader award every year, which was around USD 20 million, but also increase internal revenue rate of the Project by about 1%, significantly improving CNPC’s international status and final say in this Project. However, companies like BP plc and Total had been operating in Abu Dhabi for years, and were quite familiar with NEB asset. Besides, their development plans had been revised by multiple experts for years, making them quite authoritative in Abu Dhabi. So, it was a great challenge for Wei to find the problems in the existing plan and propose a new one. Despite the challenge, Wei’s team spared no effort and made breakthroughs in information, understanding and technologies by meticulously characterising reservoirs and analysing 7,000 G data of 2,000 m core, and they finally pushed their understanding of geology and reservoir characteristics in Abu Dhabi further. The development performance has been sharply improved by optimising well patterns, well spacing, well type and development modes with measures like meticulous separated-zone water injection. In 7 months, We i’s t e a m h a d c o m p l e t e d t h e overall NEB optimisation plan for 11 reservoirs, ensuring better development performance than that of the plans of western companies with less drilling job and reduced operational cost. On October 15th and November 28th, 2017, Wei reported to the upstream segment President of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) twice on behalf of the Project Team. “I was touched by his plan,” said the President in excitement after Wei’s presentation. On December 27th, 2017, CNPC was officially granted the NEB Asset Leader by ADNOC. As the team leader, Wei played an essential role in the steady progressing and final success of the Project. After being awarded the NEB Asset Leader, CNPC received an additional income of USD 20 million every year in the next five years, significantly increasing its influence over the Project, and laying a solid foundation for CNPC to enter other relevant projects in this region.
W ei led his technical team to tackle down technical difficulties in accordance with the key performance indexes made by Iraq since CNPC was granted the asset leader title in January 2018. They even formulated a number of oilfield on-site implementation measures. Wei’s team took root in the frontline and had multiple technical meetings with ADNOC, promoting a number of implementation measures represented by the revised main layer water injection plan for DY Oilfield, indicating the official recognition of CNPC’s hypotonic carbonate rock reservoir development technique in the high-end international market.
W ei never stopped improving himself by undertaking fundamental research tasks and advocating the “industry-university-research” integration while he was engaged in on-site oilfield tasks. As the deputy project leader of “the Key Techniques to the Massive Carbonate Reservoir Development along the Silk Road Economic Belt”, a key national project of the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan”, and the project leader of the “Support of and Research on the Oilfield Development Techniques of the Middle East”, a technical support project of CNPC’s Overseas Exploration and Development Company, Wei has been actively engaged in the oilfield development in the Middle East, and achieved a number of innovative results. In the past five years, he has obtained five provincial and ministerial-level scientific and technological progress awards (including four provincial and ministerial-level first prizes and one second prize for scientific and technological progress), one bureau-level special prize, published 25 SCI/EI papers, four monographs/ translations, one internationally authorised patent and four authorised invention patents, and was invited to deliver academic speeches for seven times at international conferences such as SPE.
W ei has done an exceptional job thanks to his solid professional foundation, dedication, and preciseness. He was granted the Stated-owned Enterprise Model Worker title and was listed as one of Top 10 Outstanding Youths of CNPC in 2019. Prizes and honorary titles never made him complacent. “The honours from CNPC and RIPED are affirmative and encouraging. The road ahead is still long, and I will forge ahead step by step to meet higher expectations”, said Wei. Seven years have passed since he was hired by CNPC. Wei dedicated his youth to his beloved industry, petroleum, and lit up the road ahead with his own efforts.
CHINA OIL & GAS
No.4, 2020
72。