Around 8:00 on March 17th, on the Shenzhen Chiwan Marine Engineering and Construction Site Wharf, the Shenzhen-made Enping 20-4 platform jacket “Pang Dwen Dwen” left the port aboard the “Haiyang Shiyou 228” barge. With the total weight exceeding the Eiffel Tower, it would head for the Enping oilfield cluster sea area, which is about 200 kilometers southwest of Shenzhen.

   Reporters have learned from CNOOC Shenzhen Branch that “Pang Dwen Dwen” is expected to “sail” for 28 hours on the ocean, and will be launched on March 20 as the first jacket installed in the eastern waters of the South China Sea in 2023. The eastern South China Sea oilfield, where “Pang Dwen Dwen” will operate, is the main "battlefield" for China’s offshore oil industry to move towards deep water. In 2022, the oilfield's annual oil and gas output exceeded 20 million tons for the first time.

    Given the storm and severe condition of the South China Sea, April to May is the “golden window” for large marine engineering equipment to be installed offshore. “According to a scientific analysis, we seize the opportunity to advance the installation of Enping 20-4 jacket to March, making it the earliest large-scale equipment to be launched over the years.” Liu Huaxiang, General Manager of the Deep Water Engineering and Construction Center of CNOOC Shenzhen Branch, said that guided by the requirements proposed at the High-quality Development Conference of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, CNOOC Shenzhen Branch will accelerate the development and construction of new oilfields with a sense of urgency that "can't sit still", a sense of crisis that "can't slow down" and a sense of responsibility that "can't afford to wait ", so as to provide astrong impetus for the development of Shenzhen's real economy.

  

    Mainly composed of a jacket and upper modules, the jacket platform is the most widely used offshore oil and gas production facility in the world, of which the jacket is equivalent to the base of the offshore platform, "rooted" in the seabed, carrying tens of thousands of tons of upper oil and gas processing modules. Built by CSE, the “Pang Dwen Dwen”, which is 104 meters high and weighs 11,846 tons, is the 108th oil and gas jacket delivered by the company since its establishment in 1994.

   Ge Zhihai, Executive Deputy General Manager of CSE, told reporters that the overall width of "Pang Dwen Dwen" is 98 meters, and its maximum slope of the top row installation is 32 degrees with the 570 tons maximum lifting. As the largest jacket in terms of top row mounting slope and side span of the same type at present, it requires the construction team to control size in a more precise manner and have sufficient experience in large-scale lifting. 

   The marine industry cluster is one of the "20+8" industry clusters that Shenzhen focuses on. Since 2020, the CSE, who has devoted a lot of effort in the high-end equipment manufacturing in the marine engineering industry for many years, has maintained a strong growth momentum. In 2021, it formulated a five-year informatization work roadmap to strive for higher quality development. Ge Zhihai said, "In the last three years, CSE's business performance has increased significantly, with an average annual growth rate of about 22%, and is expected to continue to grow this year."
                                                                                                            

   "Since 2012, a total of 24 offshore oil and gas production facilities have been manufactured in Shenzhen, which promotes the development and upgrading of Shenzhen's offshore engineering technology and equipment manufacturing industry." The head of CNOOC Shenzhen Branch introduces that Shenzhen Branch has invested nearly 20 billion yuan in engineering construction in the past three years, and will launch 10 new projects, build 16 oil and gas fields, with a focus on the key technology of deepwater oil and gas engineering, intelligent and digital technology, CCUS industry chain technology and other scientific and technological issues. In addition, it will cooperate with domestic dominant enterprises, including marine engineering enterprises in Shenzhen, and strive to be the “origin” of original technology for marine equipment manufacture and the "chain leader" of the industry chain, and ultimately support and cooperate with Shenzhen to build its "20+8" industry clusters.

   It is reported that the business performance, profitability and tax payment contribution of CNOOC Shenzhen Branch reached a record high in 2022. In 2023, it will promote the investment and construction of more than 10 key projects such as the Enping 15-1 oilfield cluster, the Liuhua 11-1/4-1 oilfield and the Lufeng 8-1 oilfield. With an expected annual fixed asset investment of more than 10 billion yuan, its oil and gas production are expected to reach a new record high.

   [Related News] Will the Huge "Pang Dwen Dwen" Be Installed in the Sea?

Li Zhenning, General Manager of the Enping 15-1 Oilfield Cluster Development Project Team of CNOOC Shenzhen Branch, told reporters, “It (Pang Dwen Dwen) will be launched at sea by sliding, righted by the main operating vessel 'Blue Whale'. After the spud legs are firmly set on the seabed, 12 steel piles will be driven to firmly anchor the jacket to the seabed. And the high-strength cement that can quickly solidify is used to reinforce the jacket. The entire operation lasts about 20 days.”

 The installation of jacket requires extreme high precision, because the 10,000-ton jacket in the vast sea is just like "a drop in the ocean". Therefore, the positioning error radius should be less than 3 meters and the levelness error should not exceed 0.5% after emplacement. Given the undercurrent in the deep ocean, it is difficult to control the installation process, which is like "threading a needle” in the sea.

   "Each step is carefully designed and interlocked; and there should be no errors during the entire installation process. After the launch, the jacket will move to adjust by its own buoyancy,” said the installation manager Hu Bosheng.