Deepwater jacket set to create records

Asia's first deepwater jacket, designed and built independently by China National Offshore Oil Corp, completed construction of its main structure on Tuesday in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, the country's top offshore oil and gas producer said.

Industry experts said the successful construction of the Haiji-2 will help China in efficiently developing its deepwater oil and gas resources.

A jacket serves as the foundation of an offshore oil and gas platform. It supports the huge body and tonnage of an offshore platform, and is widely used across the world in offshore oil and gas development.

The successful construction will not only set records in China's offshore oil production platform but also symbolize a new model in deepwater oil and gas exploration, further facilitating China's development of deepwater oil and gas resources in an efficient manner, said Lin Boqiang, head of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University.

China is presently capable of independently developing offshore oil and gas engineering equipment up to a depth of 300 meters, with the homegrown deepwater oil and gas engineering equipment technology gradually becoming world-leading, he said.

The Haiji-2, weighing 37,000 metric tons and standing 338 meters tall, has created a record in terms of the height and weight of such equipment in Asia, signifying significant progress in China's independent design and construction capabilities for deep-sea large-scale offshore oil and gas equipment, CNOOC said.

The completion of Haiji-2 will further promote the development of the domestic marine oil and gas equipment supply chain in the country, said Wang Huoping, chief engineer of the Deepwater Engineering and Construction Center of CNOOC's Shenzhen branch.

The jacket platform will become the tallest offshore oil and gas production platform in Asia, with a total height of 428 meters and total weight exceeding 50,000 tons. The platform will be used for the development of the Liuhua 11-1 and Liuhua 4-1 oil fields.

Located in a typhoon-prone area amid rough sea conditions, the Haiji-2 has overcome challenges such as foundation settlement, large-scale lifting and precision control, CNOOC said.

The work team has overcome a series of challenges, including strong internal waves in the South China Sea, giant sand ripples and sand ridges at the bottom of sea, as well as accurate positioning of giant structures under water.

Several technologies were adopted for the first time, while China's domestic design, manufacturing, operation maintenance and management abilities have all been improved, it said.