OREANDA-NEWS. June 15, 2011. Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, during his state visiting in Cuba, inspected the GW139 drilling crew of CNPC Great Wall Drilling Company. Xi asked about project progress and talked with Chinese and Cuban staff. He highly praised CNPC's efforts in promoting the economic and social development of Cuba, and hoped GWDC's staff to actively contribute to the petroleum cooperation between the two countries.

Xi was accompanied by Cuban Vice-President Ramiro Valdes, acting Minister of Basic Industry Tomas Benitez, Cupet President Raul Peres, and CNPC President Jiang Jiemin.

GWDC provides drilling, well logging, and mud logging services in the Cuban Project which was jointly initiated with Cupet in 2005. In the past six years, the company has successfully drilled and worked over 67 wells with extended reach, which, including well VDW-1002 with a maximum horizontal reach of up to 5,444m, have helped the country produce additional 13 million barrels of crude and identify new oil reserves. GWDC has also trained 100 Cuban engineers and technicians to form four drilling crews. This is significant to the development of a petroleum engineering and technical service system in Cuba.