“Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station Successfully Arrived at Target Sea Area

Date：2021-02-09

On February 6, the world’s first 100,000t deepwater semi-submersible production and storage platform - “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station independently developed and built by our country successfully arrived at Lingshui sea area to the southeast of Hainan Island after a voyage of 1,600 sea miles within 18 days. It took its position at “Deep Sea No. 1” Gas Field (Lingshui 17-2) and started offshore mooring, installation and commissioning, marking a key step for our first 1,500m self-operated deepwater gas field to go into official production.

The “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station was completed and delivered on January 14. Towed by three high horsepower tugboats, the station departed Yantai, Shandong, on January 19, and crossed the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait and eventually reached the intended position in the Lingshui sea area on February 6.

Long distance towing of 53,000t deep sea oil and gas production equipment is the very first time in China. To ensure the towing safety, CNOOC has formed a specialized towing team consisting of senior domestic experts, established a sea-land emergency assurance system, repeatedly studied and demonstrated the towing scheme, carried out emergency drill for possible extreme situations and developed emergency plans for each possible emergency.

During the coming Spring Festival period, subsequent work including offshore mooring, installation and commissioning will be carried out successively to ensure the “Deep Sea No. 1” gas field goes into production as scheduled.

Lingshui 17-2 is the first 1,500m self-operated deepwater gas field of China with proved geological reserves of more than 100 billion m3, 150km from Hainan Island. After the gas field is put into operation, it will provide a stable supply of 3 billion m3 gas to Guangdong, Hong Kong and Hainan every year, meeting one fourth of the demand in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. In the meantime, the “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station will drive the development of the surrounding medium gas fields such as Lingshui 18-1 and Lingshui 25-1 so as to form a gas field cluster. Based on the established natural gas pipe network artery in the Greater Bay Area and the free trade port of Hainan Island, a gas zone of 1,000 billion m3 will be established in the South China Sea so as to produce and transport natural gas resources to the maximum extent.

Photo: “Deep Sea No. 1” Energy Station