Published : 27/12/2025

On 27 December 1974, China's first "underground artery"—the Daqing Oilfield to Qinhuangdao oil pipeline—was officially completed and began transporting oil.

The commissioning of this pipeline ensured the outward transportation of crude oil from the Daqing Oilfield, and also made pipeline transport China's fifth emerging transport industry after railways, roads, aviation, and water transport.

In 1970, Daqing's crude oil output exceeded 20 million tonnes, and apart from the over one million tonnes processed and consumed by the Daqing Longfeng Refinery, the remaining crude oil all had to be transported externally.

However, the only means for transporting the crude oil externally was by train, with a maximum daily transport capacity of only four trains, approximately over 8,000 tonnes.

At that time, due to the inadequate transport route, the production of Daqing's crude oil could only be determined by its transport capacity, and sometimes it was even necessary to shut down wells.

For this reason, the State Council of China decided to build a 1,152-kilometre-long underground oil pipeline from Daqing to Qinhuangdao.

The primary media transported by pipelines are petroleum, refined oil products and natural gas, etc., and its advantages are low transport costs, high efficiency, being unaffected by environmental pollution, being unrestricted by climate and ground conditions, being able to transport non-stop 24 hours a day, and therefore having obvious advantages in construction and transport costs compared to other modes of transport.

The construction project was approved by the state on 3 August 1970, hence it was named the "August 3rd Project".

The designed annual oil transport capacity was 40 million tonnes, with the crude oil temperature at the starting point being 55 to 65 degrees. The entire project was constructed in sections by the four provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, and Hebei.

After unremitting efforts, crude oil from the Daqing Oilfield began trial transport from the "August 3rd Project's" first station, the Daqing Linyuan Pumping Station, on 30 October 1971, and then, passing through a joint transport system of 12 pumping stations in the three north-eastern provinces, crossing 145 large and small rivers, passing over 15 mountain ranges, going through 25 railway lines and travelling more than 600 kms, it successfully reached Fushun on 7 November.

Later, as Daqing's crude oil output further increased, a second parallel pipeline was also established. These two large-calibre, long-distance oil pipelines provided an important guarantee for solving the external transport of Daqing's annual output of 50 million tonnes of crude oil.