Karamay City was founded in 1958 and now is a prefecture-level city of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

There are four administrative districts in Karamay. It covers a total area of 7,700 square kilometers and has a population of 400,000, comprising 38 ethnic groups, including Han, Uygur, Kazakh, Hui and Mongolian. It is located in the northwest edge of the Junggar Basin and 313 kilometers away from Urumqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Dushanzi district is separated by Kuitun city and is 150 kilometers away from downtown Karamay.

Karamay has a long history of petroleum exploitation. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Dushanzi crude oil, the Black Oil Hill asphalt mound and the Urhe asphaltum vein were all recorded in the local gazetteers and the Chinese and foreign geological works. In 1909, the Xinjiang Business Administration initiated the modern oil and gas industry, and drilled the first industrial oil wells in Dushanzi. From 1936 to 1943, the Xinjiang government cooperated with the Soviet Union and conducted the oil exploration and refinery in Dushanzi. At that time, the highest annual output of crude oil amounted to 7,321 ton. Karamay’s oilfield was the first one to be exploited since the founding of the P.R. China. On October 29, 1955, the commercial crude oil flow spurted out of well No.1 in Karamay, declaring the birth of the Karamay Oilfield- the first large oil field of new China. After 5 decades development since it established, Karamay has become the first 10-million-ton-level oil field in western China and the 20-million-ton oil refining & chemical industry base.

Karamay is in the mid-latitude regions of the world and is under the control of a typical temperate continental climate. Karamay has great sunshine duration endowed by nature. The average annual precipitation is around 108.9mm and the evaporation capacity is about 2692.1mm. There are average 64.5 windy days, 232.3 frost-free days and 27.6 hot days (temperature above 35℃ in summer) annually.

The major landform of Karamay is Gobi desert. The soil is barren and salty, which contains a lot of sand. The natural forest covers 28,100 hectares, and most of them are populus euphratica and desert shrub. The natural stream networks are mainly rivers and underground springs in Karamay. There are three seasonal surface water, two lakes and six reservoirs. The major mine resources are oil and gas which is featured with huge reserve, shallow storage layers and fine quality. The two natural resources consist of oil-bearing strata and reservoir type, and distributed mainly in the center, northwest margin, and southern margin of the Junggar basin. Other natural mine resources are natural asphalt, coal, salt lime, mirabilite, refractory, gravel, etc. The reserve of gas de-asphalting and tar sands is rich and the asphalt geological reserves are about 250 million ton.

By the end of 2008, there were 30 high-tech companies, 66 high-tech products and 77 private technological companies with 1.5 billion yuan total assets and 1.5 billion yuan total revenue. The comprehensive strength continues to take the third position in Xinjiang. In the fields of education, Karamay has comparatively complete educational system. There were 2 colleges, one vocational school, one special education school, 21 middle schools, 32 primary schools and 26 kindergartens in Karamay by the end of 2008. The housing condition in Karamay has been improved marvelously. The per capita housing area is up to 35.53 m2 and leads the whole autonomous region. In rural area, 793 anti-earthquake village houses had been built by the end of 2008. And at the same time the city’s infrastructure is experiencing constant improvement. Karamay will be built into the hub of transportation in northern Xinjiang and the foreign logistic center. A transport network was established in the city, consisting of highway, railway and civil aviation, etc. As for the medical and health service, there are 75 health agencies established including comprehensive hospitals, community health service centers and clinics by the end of 2008.

Leading industries in Karamay include petroleum, petro-chemicals, petroleum equipment manufacturing. Focused efforts were made to promote the development of emerging industries, including information technology, tourism and finance industry. In 2012, the total GDP of Karamay is RMB 81.00 billion, 6% increase compared to the previous year. The local government revenue was 6.87 billion yuan, 15% increase compared to the previous year, making our city’s economy maintain a steady and rapid development trend. The registered urban unemployment rate was kept within 4.5%, the per capita disposable income of urban residents was 23,112 yuan, and the per capita net income of rural residents was 13,472 yuan.

In 2010, the goals to actualize well-off society in 2015 and to build Karamay into the world class oil city were put forward successively. The CPC Karamay Committee and Karamay Municipal Government will strive to transform Karamay from a “single resource-based city” into “comprehensive city” and from an “industrial-based economy” into “service-oriented economy”. In order to achieve the above strategic goal, Karamay devotes to building six industrial bases (oil & gas production, technological services, refining chemistry, petroleum reserves, machinery manufacturing and engineering education), developing three emerging industries (finance, information technology and tourism), and building the two platforms（the high quality and the safest city). We believe that Karamay will have prosperity and developed economy with a dynamic and livable environment, and all people at home and abroad will enjoy a civilized and harmonious Karamay.

Links:
Karamay Government