Chapter 72

After hanging up the phone, Jifeng said to Jin Tonghao, "Manager Jin, you go back and rest first. I'll stay and take charge of the exploration. Anyway, this exploration ship is fully automatic. Send more reliable security forces over."

After all, this place was only 30 nautical miles from Jeju Island and not far from South Korea. Fortunately, it was not on a shipping route, or it would have been discovered long ago.

Even so, the location was only a dozen or so nautical miles from the nearest shipping lane. When dawn came, such a massive object would inevitably be spotted by some civilian vessels.

Jin Tonghao seemed to understand Jifeng's concern. He agreed and untied a speedboat below, leaving with a few people. The others on the drilling platform had already left with the meal and security personnel. In the entire sea area, there were now fewer than 40 people, including Jifeng.

After Jin Tonghao left, Jifeng told the workers to take turns resting, then went into a rest room and entered the space to practice cultivation.

The next morning, after Jifeng finished his cultivation, he found that the sweet potatoes, which had already formed roots, were now pushing up small mounds. He dug one up to check, and the size of the sweet potatoes was really impressive, more than twice as large as those he usually bought for Xu Xian. Jifeng couldn't help but feel a bit troubled. Growing fast was good, but growing too fast without help was a dilemma.

He dug out over a hundred sweet potatoes, picked them off the vines, and stored them in his spatial ring, planning to let Xu Xian try them when he returned. Fortunately, the soil wasn't too hard, or Jifeng wouldn't have wanted to dig with his hands.

Leaving the rest room, he went to the washroom to wash his hands and, taking advantage of the absence of others, took out a toothbrush from his spatial ring and brushed his teeth. After tidying up, he left the rest area.

As soon as he opened the door from the rest area to the work area, the loud noise outside came again, making Jifeng once again marvel at the manufacturing technology at Thomas's place. In the rest area, he couldn't feel any of the noise outside.

Walking to the drill rig, he glanced at the machine, which was still rotating, and asked a worker nearby, "Have you changed shifts? How deep have you drilled?"

Jin Tonghao hadn't told everyone Jifeng's identity, but they had heard him call Jifeng "boss," so they all followed suit.

However, it was clear that Jifeng had asked the wrong person. The worker looked at Jifeng blankly and blurted out a string of Korean, making Jifeng's face turn black. Another worker, seeing the situation, quickly ran over and greeted Jifeng, "Boss, why don't you rest a bit more? Everything is fine here; we're keeping an eye on it."

Hearing familiar English, Jifeng sighed, "Why isn't everyone fluent in English or Chinese?" "I'm rested. How deep have you drilled?" This time, he didn't ask about the shift change, seeing that they all looked energetic, though their eyes were slightly red, they didn't seem tired.

Indeed, with a fully automatic exploration ship, they had nothing to do but watch. It wasn't tiring at all, just a bit time-consuming.

The worker glanced at the newly added drill pipe and smiled, "Boss, we've drilled 3,400 meters. This is the 35th pipe, not counting the drill bit."

Jifeng nodded slightly and looked at the monitor on the seabed. The drill hole was no longer leaking muddy water. The depth of the drill hole was only 147.4 meters below the sea surface, making the use of this deep-sea exploration ship seem a bit overkill. But for now, this was the only exploration ship he had, so he might as well use it.

Turning his head, Jifeng asked worriedly, "Has the speed decreased? Does the drill bit need to be replaced?" Thomas had boasted that the drill bit wouldn't need to be replaced even for several deep-sea wells, but Jifeng had never heard of such a thing, and Baidu said that several drill bits were needed to complete a single oil well.

"The drill bit hasn't triggered any alarms, so it shouldn't need to be replaced. The drilling speed is still 4.8 meters per minute, which is quite impressive, considering we're now in the third rock layer," the English-speaking worker replied quickly.

Jifeng smiled in satisfaction and patted the worker's shoulder, "Very good, thank you for your hard work."

For the entire day, the exploration ship operated like a precise, fully automatic machine, requiring no human intervention. Every 20 to 30 minutes, the crane would automatically grab a drill pipe and, with the help of two automatic robotic arms, lock it onto the previous pipes, continuing its mission downward.

Apart from three cargo ships deviating from their routes and being driven away by security personnel, nothing happened. Even the sea breeze had calmed down.

All Jifeng could see was water, making him and the others visually fatigued. He took out his fishing rod and went to a platform to fish, but after two hours of the drill rig's noise, he hadn't caught a single fish, so he put the rod away.

At 36 hours and 17 minutes after starting the drill rig, the drill pipe representing a depth of 10,000 meters disappeared into the drill hole. The 101st drill pipe was secured by the drill rig and continued to drill downward.

All the workers on the ship were elated, cheering loudly. Jin Tonghao, who had returned early on the third morning, even brought out South Korean soju to celebrate. Drilling 10,000 meters without any malfunctions in just 36 hours and 17 minutes was a miracle in the history of world oil exploration, and this miracle was created by them.

Although they couldn't announce their achievement to the public or enjoy the world's attention, everyone was elated internally. The next step was to see if they could really drill for oil. South Korea had searched all its waters and even the national oil company had declared that there was no oil in its waters, relying entirely on imports.

If they could really drill for oil here, even if the reserves were not large, it would at least prove that there were oil reserves in the waters around Jeju Island. They believed that there were also oil reserves in South Korea's waters. And the one who created this miracle was not only himself but also his mysterious young boss.

Previously, they had been transferred to Jeju Energy Company, and although their salaries were higher than before, they still had a lot of nostalgia for South Korea. But after seeing such advanced offshore exploration equipment, their minds had gradually changed over the past day. In the future, their former colleagues would probably feel awkward when they saw them, having mocked them before. Their boss had accomplished what the entire South Korean oil industry had failed to do, and he had done it so decisively.

At this point, everyone accepted Jin Tonghao's confidentiality order. At least among the people on the ship, no one was willing to reveal the specific drilling depth. With such advanced equipment, their boss had provided them with a better work environment and higher income. Where else could they find such a good deal?

Even if they could imagine the boss's means, could they be ordinary? If they leaked the secret, they would face more than just legal punishment.

The calm and tense time was quietly passing. The sun gradually rose high in the sky, and the warm noon sunlight shone on the sea, illuminating the dozens of people on the exploration platform.

They had reached a depth of 12,000 meters, only 400 meters away from the depth Jifeng had set. If someone had said that a 10,000-meter deep offshore oil well could be drilled in less than two days, they would have been laughed at. But now, the workers at the Jeju Energy exploration site could proudly say, "We can."

Jifeng occasionally heard someone's stomach rumbling. After breakfast at around 7:30 AM, no one had eaten again, and they were surely very hungry.

Seeing that there were only 400 meters left, Jifeng urged the reluctant workers to go eat, even kicking Jin Tonghao to the dining room. If he hadn't led by example, the workers wouldn't have gone to eat.

In less than 15 minutes, after the 122nd drill pipe was replaced, everyone finished lunch and ran back. Jin Tonghao even personally brought Jifeng a hamburger.

As the 124th drill pipe entered the drill rig, everyone became tense. This was the last pipe according to the planned depth. If there was no oil after this pipe...

Everyone looked at Jifeng, who was smiling, not understanding why he was so confident.

Jifeng was actually extremely nervous, his hands sweating. This depth was over 200 meters deeper than what he had heard. If they still didn't find oil, he would be in an awkward position.

Jifeng thought simply: since it was fully automated, it was just a waste of two days at most. It was worth a try, and who knew, maybe they would find something.

As everyone watched the monitors and the drill rig nervously, the drill rig suddenly trembled and then stopped abruptly. Just as everyone was wondering why it had stopped, they heard a rumbling sound. Moments later, a red light appeared on one of the monitors, and a shrill alarm sounded.

Jin Tonghao, who was nearby, looked and his eyes turned red with excitement. He shouted, "There's oil! Boss, there's oil!"

The monitor displayed real-time information from the drill bit, which was now in black liquid. The data confirmed that it was the long-awaited crude oil, along with a set of test results.

Jifeng didn't understand these things, but Jin Tonghao and the others, with years of experience in the oil industry, knew the data was genuine. It was indeed crude oil, and of high quality.

At the same time, they saw an even more surprising message: "Estimating oil reserves. Please wait. You can prepare the production platform during this period. After the estimation is complete, remove the exploration platform and replace it with a production platform to continue work. Estimation will be complete in 22 minutes..."

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