Karamay, a city in north Xinjiang, has created miracles of prosperity thanks to its oil reserves.

This story started in 1955, when the newly founded People's Republic of China had begun systematic petroleum exploration and geological surveys in its western region to establish a domestic oil industry. The area around the Heiyou Mountain in Xinjiang was considered to be a "sea of death… without water or grass or even a single bird flying past."

A prospecting team arrived in this hostile terrain and began drilling for oil. It took them several months but eventually, they struck oil. The drill finally reached an oil vein deep beneath the ground and black crude oil gushed out. The No.1 oil well led to the discovery of the large oilfield in the area, which was the starting point of the city of Karamay.

In the following decades, young people from around the country flocked there in search of the black gold. With blood and sweat, they built up a city in the desert from scratch. Today, walking in the wide and clean streets of Karamay, you can feel the good life created by oil.

However, the transformation due to oil is not the end of the story. With the ongoing drive to switch to clean energy from fossil fuel, the city, which used to rely on oil for its living, is silently changing its course. It is writing a new chapter on energy in the desert by making use of its rich wind and solar resources.

Ambitious plans

Oil is still the ballast for Karamay. By the end of 2025, the oil-gas equivalent is projected to hit a historical record of 20 million tons, continuing the steady production for 24 consecutive years. Yet a different energy story is taking shape as well.

In one end of the city, an energy storage project costing 1.7 billion yuan ($241 million) is breaking ground. When the power demand is low, it will store the surplus power in lithium iron phosphate batteries. This stored electricity will be released during peak load periods to support the power grid. Once completed, this massive battery storage system will be able to handle 800 million kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity annually, taming the volatility of wind and solar energy so that they become reliable power providers.

A yet more ambitious plan is to harness hydrogen energy. In 2023, Karamay set a goal to become the first "hydrogen capital" of west China. "We have a concrete need," said Ge Benliang, Vice Director of the Karamay Hi‑Tech Industrial Development Zone Management Committee. "Local petrochemical companies consume vast amounts of hydrogen each year and largely rely on gray hydrogen. They urgently need green hydrogen."

Gray hydrogen, the most common form of hydrogen, is generated from fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, which causes a high volume of carbon dioxide emissions. Green hydrogen, on the other hand, is a clean energy source that emits only water vapor.

"But we also possess a resource advantage," Ge added. "Karamay is rich in wind and solar resources, fully capable of generating the green electricity needed to produce green hydrogen."

It is estimated that renewable energy in Karamay can help produce more than 1 million tons of hydrogen annually.

Green electricity is finding innovative applications, for instance in data centers. The China Mobile (Karamay) cloud computing and AI data center is the first of its kind in Xinjiang and shows signs of becoming the largest in west China. It aims to use the stable green electricity generated from wind and solar-powered hydrogen to build Xinjiang's first zero-carbon data center powered solely by green electricity.

Toilet revolution

Karamay not only develops its energy industry, but also the urban infrastructure. For a city of migrants like Karamay that has sprung up from the sands of the Gobi Desert, water-intensive flush toilets were particularly precious. Modern sanitation with flush toilets and proper sewage treatment drastically improves public health. China launched a "toilet revolution" around 2015 to build and upgrade public and private toilets across the country.

Since 2015, Karamay has invested significant sums to build 480 public toilets, complete with mother-and-baby facilities, that can be found in every street and alley. The toilet architecture is diverse, drawing on the local styles.

For example, in the World Mystery Town of Karamay, a desert landscape with irregular sand ridges and rock formations sculpted by wind erosion that make howling sounds when the wind passes through them, giving the place its name, the toilets are built in the same yardang landscape style.

Visitors can learn more about the history of the city at the Museum of Karamay. Liu Yan tells them about the past as a third-generation immigrant to the city.

"My grandpa came to Karamay at the age of 15," she said. "He was among the first generation of builders who contributed to building this city, toiling in the desert. My aunt is a journalist who has been recording this city's development with her pen. As the third generation, it's my mission and duty to tell the Xinjiang stories."

In order to tell the stories of the past generation's heroic efforts, Liu and her colleagues went through the archives of local publications and interviewed several women who had worked in the oilfield. With this sense of responsibility, the Karamay spirit has been passed down from generation to generation.

The 15th Five-Year Plan

Now there is a new blueprint for future transformation. Ma Xueliang, Secretary of the Communist Party of China Karamay Municipal Committee, laid out the city's roadmap for the coming five years to the press, "We will implement four major strategies: strengthening the city through industrial growth, revitalizing it through science and education, improving the ecological environment for sustainability, and carrying out reforms."

While strengthening core industries such as oil and gas production, technology services and petrochemicals, Karamay will also diversify, developing equipment manufacturing, new materials, new energy and the digital economy, propelling from a "resource-dependent" model toward one featuring diversified industries.

Backstopped by the Belt and Road Initiative, Karamay is being transformed into a strategic hub on the "golden corridor" between Asia and Europe. It is part of the vast China Railway Express network that connects China with Europe and Central Asia via freight trains, boosting Eurasian trade significantly. The city is also hosting high-profile international events such as the China-Shanghai Cooperation Organization Digital Technology Cooperation and Development Forum, resulting in its "circle of friends" expanding.

Seventy percent of Karamay's fiscal expenditure is made to improve people's livelihood. The city has been recognized for five times as a "national-level civilized city," the highest honor a Chinese city can win based on its economic growth, governance, public services, social harmony and culture; and is forging ahead in its goal of becoming a modern, people‑oriented city that is innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, civilized and smart.

From the pledge to "contribute oil to the country" to the new dream of building "the hydrogen capital of west China," from a city once solely dependent on oil to a modern city thriving on multiple industries, from the hardship of blazing a new trail in the early years to today's common prosperity among all ethnic groups—the story of Karamay tells about the growth of an oil city. It is also an inspiring story of how a resource-dependent city has successfully promoted growth through diversification. 

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