On March 26, Asia’s deepest water jacket platform, “Haiji No. 2,” completed its flooding and righting operation in the Pearl River Mouth Basin, marking the successful installation and positioning of Asia’s first deepwater jacket platform designed and built independently in China.

CCTV reporter Gu Junling: At the offshore installation site for “Haiji No. 2,” after 16 hours of continuous operations, the vessel has transitioned from its transverse floating position at the time of yesterday’s float-out to an upright orientation. Its towering 338-meter structure now stands securely on the seabed at a depth of 324 meters, with only slightly more than 10 meters remaining above the water. Moving forward, workers will use it as the foundation to construct and install a 10,000-ton-class offshore drilling platform. In the years ahead, despite repeated challenges posed by typhoons and severe sea conditions, “Haiji No. 2” is expected to remain steadfastly in place for 30 years, continuously delivering deepwater oil and gas to households across the country and providing robust support for national energy security.

Water ballasting and uprighting of the jacket structure is a critical step in the offshore installation of deepwater jacket platforms. This process involves lifting the jacket using a large crane vessel while simultaneously flooding the jacket’s ballast tanks, thereby transitioning the structure from a floating to an upright position and precisely settling it at its designated seabed location. The construction process presents complex technical challenges, including the design of lifting points, ballast-water piping systems, compartmentalization, and precise positioning.

China Offshore oil, offshore oil Shu Wei, General Contracting Project Manager for the Liuhua Oilfield Project: The Blue Whale 7500, China’s largest offshore oil and gas engineering crane vessel, was deployed for the jacket platform uprighting operation. Water was sequentially injected into 22 compartments, while an advanced positioning and precise alignment system continuously adjusted the jacket’s position and attitude, enabling the “Haiji No. 2” to traverse 324 meters of water and achieve pinpoint placement with installation accuracy meeting international best practices.

Following the installation of “Haiji No. 2,” subsequent construction activities will continue, including underwater pile driving and the installation of the topside module. Upon completion, the facility will be paired with Asia’s first cylindrical “offshore oil and gas processing plant” and deployed in China’s first deepwater oilfield, the Liuhua Oilfield, thereby providing a new, cost-effective option for the economical and efficient development of China’s deepwater oil and gas resources.

New Model Fuels the Release of 100 Million Tons of Deepwater Oil and Gas Production Capacity

As the foundation for offshore oil and gas platforms, the “Haiji No. 2” jacket platform must not only support its own weight but also withstand typhoons, surge waves, and other severe marine hazards. To ensure its stable installation in the Liuhua oilfield cluster, the jacket must be securely anchored to the seabed through pile-driving operations.

The Liuhua oilfield cluster is located in the waters of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, more than 240 kilometers southeast of Shenzhen, and comprises five oilfields, including Liuhua 11-1, Liuhua 4-1, and Liuhua 16-2. With an average water depth of approximately 400 meters, the cluster represents the largest reef–limestone oilfield discovered to date in China’s offshore waters in terms of geological reserves, and also constitutes the deepest-water offshore development project in China.

Liu Huaxiang, General Manager of the Liuhua Oilfield Development Project at CNOOC: The Liuhua Oilfield has proven oil and gas geological reserves on the scale of 100 million tonnes. Its secondary development project adopts a groundbreaking development model featuring a “deepwater jacket platform combined with a cylindrical ‘offshore oil and gas processing facility’,” which not only enhances the recovery rate of reef–limestone reservoirs and unlocks deepwater reserves but also significantly reduces development costs, thereby continuously injecting new momentum into national energy security.

Currently, China has established a variety of deepwater oil and gas development models, exemplified by Liwan 3-1, Liuhua 16-2, “Deep Sea No. 1,” and Liuhua 11-1, and has preliminarily put in place a deepwater engineering technology system capable of operating at depths of up to 1,500 meters. As a result, China’s offshore oil and gas exploration and development capabilities have fully entered the “deepwater era,” with annual production now exceeding 10 million tonnes. At the same time, efforts to strengthen deep-sea exploration and development, equipment manufacturing, engineering technologies, and supporting operational capabilities have been further intensified, leading to new breakthroughs in deepwater oil and gas exploration and development.

(CCTV reporters Zhang Wei, Gu Junling, He Junru, and Tang Zengwei)