Once an important oil town, now a ruined attraction · Cold Lake Oil Base Ruins | Lonely Highway 16

Lenghu Town

I slept in a daze, but I was woken up by the whistle early in the morning. There was still no water. The son of the hotel owner brought a bucket of water for me to wash up and flush the toilet. After I packed up, I went downstairs for a walk. The hotel I stayed in was on top of the train station. There was a supermarket on the left side of the station entrance. The security check seemed to be a decoration. From the supermarket, you could also directly enter the station waiting hall. There was a table tennis table in the corner of the waiting hall. The boss and the children I was having a good time, and when I came in, I hurried over to greet me. I bought a bottle of happy water. When I paid, I chatted with the boss, "There's usually no one here."

The hotel's housekeeping department is on the right side of the security entrance of the train station. When I checked out, the landlady kept apologizing to me for the water cutoff. In fact, there was nothing I could do about the water cutoff. I just had to have a good night's sleep, given the conditions in the town. It's not good to begin with. We have more than enough time to get to Dunhuang today. Let’s have some breakfast first after a stroll.

We walked to probably the busiest area of ​​the town. There were many shops on the street, including Sichuan stir-fries, braised chicken, ramen restaurants, and supermarkets. After walking around, few were open for business, so I decided to get back to the car later. Just eat some dry food to cope with it.

The Lenghu Apartment with its dilapidated signboard has probably been abandoned for a long time. On the deserted streets, one or two PetroChina employees wearing red work clothes can occasionally be seen.

Depart from Dunhuang

I drove off. I just wanted to go to Dunhuang and send the drone back to DJI. There was a checkpoint before leaving Lenghu Town. The people who checked the documents were young armed policemen. They glanced at my document and then looked at it again. Look at me, "Are you from Guangdong? How many people are there? Why have you come so far? Now that the epidemic is so serious, why don't you just stay at home and run around?" There are so many checkpoints passed by along the way, and I have already become accustomed to these. question, he smiled wryly and replied, "I'm just alone. My job is gone, so I can go out and see the world." "You are so brave alone. Let's go. Be careful on the road." He handed the ID back to me. Haha, he really said the softest words in the strongest tone.

After leaving Lenghu Town and driving about ten kilometers along National Highway 215, you will arrive at the Lenghu Oil Base ruins.

Cold Lake Oil Base Ruins

There are ruins on the vast land. Standing in front of these huge ruins, it is hard to believe that this was once one of China's four major oil bases. There are two Lenghu Petroleum Sites. One is about ten kilometers away from Lenghu Town and you will pass the checkpoint in front of it; the other should be called Lenghu Petroleum Industrial Site, which is on S305 towards Oboliang and Mars Camp. It takes about half an hour to drive from the starting point of Kilometer 0 of the Mars Highway. This time I passed by the ruins of the Lenghu Oil Base, which is relatively close to Lenghu Town.

Lenghu is located in the northwest of the Qaidam Basin, with complex terrain, cold and dry climate, and large temperature differences between day and night. However, this dry and barren land contains rich oil resources. One summer day in the early 1950s, 30 members of the 632 Geological Team traveled across mountains and rivers, across the vast Gobi Desert, and came to the foot of Seshteng Mountain in the Lenghu area to conduct oil exploration work. The geological team members initially chose a place to stay. By the freshwater lake, the water is very cold. It is said that the nomadic Mongolian people call it "Kunteyi", which means "cold lake" in Chinese.

On August 21, 1958, the 1219 drilling team began drilling in Cold Lake; on September 13, when the drill bit reached a depth of 650 meters, a kick occurred in the "Fourth Underground Well", followed by a blowout, and crude oil shot from the center of the earth to High in the sky, spray freely for days and nights. The eruption of the "Four Wells in the Ground" opened the curtain on the development of the Lenghu oil field, making Lenghu quickly emerge as an oil town and oil base that began to take shape, and also brought hope to the motherland, which was struggling at the time.

The above historical pictures are taken from "Petroleum Business Daily" & China Petroleum official website, and have been infringed and deleted.

On February 20, 1959, the first truck of crude oil was shipped from Lenghu. Lenghu successively established a drilling department and an oil production department, built a refinery, a hydropower plant, and scientific research logistics hospitals and other units were also moved from Mangya and Dachaidan. At the same time, the number of oil workers in the Lenghu area soared to more than 20,000. For a time, Lenghu boiled. On the Gobi Desert, red flags waved, machines roared, and there was unprecedented joy in the eternally silent no-man's land. . By the end of 1959, the annual crude oil output of Lenghu Oilfield was nearly 300,000 tons, becoming the fourth largest oil field after Yumen, Xinjiang, and Sichuan.

In the 1990s, with the depletion of oil resources, most of the oil fields in Lenghu ceased production and the Petroleum Bureau relocated. Tens of thousands of oil workers and their families also left one after another. When they moved, they took away wood, iron and other materials such as roofs. Pipes, glass windows and other things that can be reused, only the bare walls remain, and the empty streets let the wind and sand roar by. This small town that once prospered due to oil has also been reduced to ruins due to the depletion of oil.

Standing on these ruins, my mind was full of movie clips depicting passionate years. I seemed to have seen countless lively work scenes. Today, these remaining ruins record a history of hard work for China Petroleum.

The signboard of the mining area trading company is still eye-catching, but the building has been dilapidated by the erosion of time and wind and sand.

I drove through the ruins. Most of the buildings had been eroded beyond recognition by long-term sandstorms. I could only judge their previous use from the general appearance structure and vague slogans on the walls. The pioneers of that era may not have had enough material resources. Rich, but the spiritual world should be relatively rich.

After passing an intersection, I turned around and caught a glimpse of a red wall. This color seemed so out of place in the ruins that had almost blended in with the loess. The car turned around and drove in front of the red wall.

I got out of the car and took a look, and there were a few words written on the wall: "Ruins Art Museum". Later I checked and found that this "Ruins Art Museum" was not built at that time, but was built in recent years by Lenghu Town in pursuit of industrial transformation. Tourism development was built in this ruins for publicity, but the actual effect may not be satisfactory. After a period of publicity, this ruins returned to its previous calm.

The red walls are covered with slogans or graffiti, which are the traces left by visitors to this ruins. They may be old Lenghu people who have devoted their youth to this ruins, or they may just be passing by here like me. Tourists, but have a common thought - this piece of history should not be forgotten.

I took a few photos here as a souvenir and flew a drone. Perhaps the aerial photography perspective can make people feel the prosperity of this ruins better.

From the perspective of aerial photography, the roads are straight, the houses are neatly arranged, and the scale is so large that you can recall the prosperity of the past.

An overhead shot of neat rows of houses in a residential area. None of these houses have roofs. This is because when they were relocated, all the things that could be reused, such as roof building materials, iron pipes, glass windows, etc. were taken away, leaving only bare wall.

The oil resources are exhausted and the city is empty of people, as if it has experienced a major earthquake.

The fate of Lenghu Oil Town is similar to that of most industrial and mining towns in the west - it was originally a desert with harsh environment and sparsely populated areas. After the resources were discovered, a large number of employees and their families poured in. It prospered for a while, but when the resources were exhausted or It is over-exploitation that leads to irreparable environmental damage, people move or leave, and what is left is ruins. Some transformations successfully found new directions for development, while others were completely abandoned and abandoned. Lenghu has tried it, but the current effect seems to be unsatisfactory. The travel fire in Qinghai Province in recent years seems to be another opportunity. I hope it will get better and better. This place where the oil ancestors sweated and burned their youth, this section of China The history of hard work for oil should not be forgotten.

Keep going

Calm down your mood and continue to set off. There is still vast desert on both sides. It just happened to cycle to the song "Ten Years of Youth for Terminal Disease" by teacher Erbai, which is a bit sad😢

The last picture is the Qilian Mountains. I have been running for many days in this extremely hot Gobi desert. In addition, I didn’t take a shower in Cold Lake last night. Now I just want to go to Dunhuang to take a shower and lie down.