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The World’s First 100,000t Deepwater Semi-submersible Production and Storage Platform
“Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station Was Delivered

Date:2021-01-18

On January 14, the world’s first 100,000t deep-water semi-submersible production and storage platform - “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station was delivered in Yantai, Shandong, marking that China’s deepwater oil and gas field development capabilities and deepwater offshore engineering equipment construction capabilities have made significant breakthroughs. It is of a profound significance to improving China’s marine resource development capabilities, safeguarding national resource security, and supporting the “maritime power” strategy.

The “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station will be towed by three high-power tugboats from the Yellow Sea all way down south, and arrive in Lingshui area to the southeast of Hainan Island in February for installation of oil and gas production facilities for the development of China’s first self-operated 1,500m deepwater large gas filed - Lingshui 17-2 Gas Field.

The “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station is composed of the topsides and the hull, built according to the high-quality design standard of “30-year service without returning to the shipyard for overhaul”. With the design fatigue life of 150 years, it can withstand 100-year super typhoons. The energy station is equipped with nearly 200 sets of key oil and gas processing equipment, and is the world's first semi-submersible platform for column oil storage, with a maximum oil storage capacity of nearly 20,000m3, integrating production, storage and transmission of gas condensate with good economic benefits and technical advantages.

The “Deep Sea No. 1” energy station is huge in size, with a total weight of more than 50,000t, the maximum projection area equivalent to two standard soccer fields, the total height of 120m, equivalent to a 40-story building, and the maximum displacement of 110,000t, equivalent to 3 medium-sized aircraft carriers. The welding seams of the hull have a total length up to 600,000m, equivalent to 3 circles of the Sixth Ring Road in Beijing. The cables used are more than 800km, equivalent to 1 circle around Hainan Island. You Xuegang, General Manager of the CNOOC Lingshui 17-2 Gas Field Development Project, said that the "Deep Sea No. 1" Energy Station, during its building, has made 3 world-class innovations and applied 13 new technologies for the first time in China to overcome more than 10 industrial challenges, and it is a masterpiece in the field of offshore engineering construction in China.

Hit by the COVID-19 epidemic at the key stage of construction, the project team faced huge challenges in quality management, safety assurance and some other aspects in addition to the high construction quality requirements and technical difficulties. CNOOC’s project team insisted on “both epidemic prevention and production”, took closed management strategy in a timely manner by scientific organization and efficient mobilization, and organized more than 40,000 workers to work day and night during the peak time, to shorten the construction period to 21 months, the minimum duration for construction of projects of similar size all over the world.

Zhong Wenjun, Chief Engineer of the CNOOC Lingshui 17-2 General Contracting Project, said that “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station followed an extremely stringent requirements for coating quality and accuracy control and the gap between the topsides and the hull connecting points is not more than 6mm. Upon successful closure, China’s semi-submersible platform hull assembly quick erection and accuracy control technology has reached the world advanced level. What’s more, a number of deepwater construction technologies have broken through the 1,500m depth; the independent manufacturing technologies for more than 10 key underwater equipment, including central manifold are developed and fully mastered; and the general contracting of super-large deepwater equipment projects has been significantly improved. Meanwhile, the personnel positioning system is also introduced into this project for comprehensive safety grid management to overcome the difficulties in confined space operations and cross operations, and has maintained the zero-accident record in 17 million working hours.

The "Deep Sea No. 1" energy station will carry out the installation and commissioning of oil and gas production facilities in Lingshui area for more than 4 months, and it is expected to be ready for operation in June this year. After the Lingshui 17-2 Gas Field is put into operation, it will rely on the main artery of the offshore natural gas pipeline network to supply 3 billion m3 of deep-sea natural gas to Guangdong, Hong Kong, Hainan and other places each year to meet a quarter of the residential gas demand in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Wang Dongjin, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and President of CNOOC, said in the sailing ceremony that, in the truly eventful 2020, CNOOC overcame a number of difficulties and successfully completed many key tasks, including Lingshui 17-2 Project, achieving a new breakthrough in deepwater oil and gas development in the South China Sea and showing CNOOC’s mission to guarantee the national energy security with practical actions. Looking to the future, as a "National Team" member for the offshore oil and gas resources development in China, CNOOC will further increase its efforts in oil and gas exploration and development and scientific and technological innovation, promote the high-quality development of the offshore oil industry in China, and contribute to the overall construction of a modern socialist country.

Photo 1: “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station

 Photo 2: “Deep Sea No. 1” sets sail

 Photo 3: “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station officially sets sail