The stripping of the derrick of horizontal well Zhao-9—Ping 2 on November 25 marked the completion of the drilling of the 45th horizontal well at Daqing Oilfield in 2006. Notable achievements have been made by the five horizontal wells already in production, with an initial average daily output per well of 20 tons, two to five times higher than that of vertical wells.

At the beginning of the year, CNPC and PetroChina called for the large-scale use of horizontal wells, and named 2006 "the year of the horizontal well", setting a target for the drilling of 500 horizontal wells in 2006, of which 45 were to be completed at Daqing Oilfield. Finally, the 45 horizontal wells were drilled and completed within only eight months, with an average individual well on-the-target ratio of up to 70.6%. As a result, a new way of effectively exploiting low pressure, low permeability, thin oil layers and heavy oil reservoirs, as well as those that are difficult to develop efficiently by conventional technologies has been developed.