High Up to Fuel Up

At an altitude of 5,000 meters in the north of Tibet Autonomous Region, oxygen levels are only 40 percent of those at sea level. Strong winds batter the area over 200 days a year. The average annual temperature runs below zero degree Celsius. The harsh climate and geological conditions have rendered the area “unsuitable for human life to flourish.”

The name of this sparsely populated place is Shuanghu County, in Nagqu Prefecture of Tibet. Covering 116,700 square km, even larger than the whole province of Jiangsu, it has only about 10,000 residents. With a relocation