Researchers planning drill rig capable of boring 15 km hole

Researchers plan to develop a drilling rig capable of boring a hole 15,000 meters deep, following up on the success of a domestically developed rig that reached 7,018 meters last month.

The development of the new rig will be based on knowledge gained from the Crust-1 10K ultradeep scientific rig, currently the best China has developed, said Sun Youhong, vice-president of Jilin University and the research and development director of the deep continental scientific drilling equipment program.

Crust-1, which was designed to bore 10,000 meters into the earth, showed its capability in Anda, Heilongjiang province, on May 26, when it penetrated the Cretaceous continental strata and drilled the deepest borehole for scientific purposes completed by an Asian country.