The world's first mobile heat injection platform, "Heat Recovery No.1", has been delivered and put into use
On October 31, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced that the world's first mobile heat injection platform, "Heat Recovery No.1", independently developed and built by China, was delivered in Weihai, Shandong Province. Its successful delivery has filled the gap in the field of mobile equipment for offshore heavy oil thermal recovery in China, opening up a new path and activating a "new engine" for the large-scale and intensive exploitation of China's offshore heavy oil resources. It is of great significance for ensuring national energy security and helping to stabilize the energy bowl.
It is reported that the "Hot Mining No.1" is 82 meters long and 42 meters wide, with a two-deck area of over 3,000 square meters, equivalent to the size of seven standard basketball courts. It is over twenty stories tall and stands majestically like a steel giant. It operates at a water depth of 35 meters and weighs over 10,000 tons in operation. It can withstand typhoons of up to level 16. Its flexible "small body" meets the mobile heat injection requirements for heavy oil extraction in the Bohai Oilfield. The mobile heat injection platform design and high-temperature and high-pressure steam pipeline compensation and other technologies it applies are world firsts.
Compared with the heat injection on fixed oil recovery platforms, "Thermal Recovery No.1" has the ability to be mobile and can be pulled by tugboats to different platforms like "shared bikes" for rapid heat injection. This effectively reduces the development cost of heavy oil and promotes the large-scale realization of heavy oil thermal recovery.
China's heavy oil resources amount to approximately 19.87 billion tons. In the Bohai Sea alone, the reserves of heavy oil account for nearly half of the total proven crude oil reserves. The significance of awakening these dormant "black amberds" for China's energy security is self-evident. "Thermal Recovery No.1" is equipped with the largest three steam boiler systems in offshore oil fields. It can simultaneously inject high-pressure steam with a temperature exceeding 350℃ into six oil Wells rapidly, reducing the viscosity of heavy oil and turning it into "thin oil" with good fluidity and easy extraction. The overall thermal injection operation efficiency is more than three times that of the past.
The "Hot Recovery No.1" was upgraded and transformed from the "Ocean Oil 162", the first domestic mobile offshore test production platform independently designed and built by China. The project was launched in January this year. The key renovation areas include the addition of a new steam boiler system, a seawater treatment system, a nitrogen system, etc. The removal of 150 pieces of equipment, 400 tons of steel structure pipelines and over 2,400 cables on the original platform was completed. The welding of 550 tons of steel structure and the installation of over 5,000 sections of pipelines and over 3,200 cables on the new platform were also accomplished. A total of 145 kilometers of newly laid cables, equivalent to the distance from Tanggu to Beijing.
The original lifting system of the platform, the main generator set and the emergency generator set were reused. Structural renovations and reinforcements were carried out on 46 cabins. The 1,600-square-meter second deck and the stern deck were redesigned, manufactured and installed. By reducing the height of the second deck and using high-strength steel and other measures, the actual empty ship weight and platform structure strength of "Hot Production No.1" exceeded expectations, demonstrating the Chinese height of CNOOC's independent design, research and development, construction and operation of the hot injection platform.
In 2007, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) formed its first heavy oil thermal recovery team. After three years of research and development, it completed the first pilot test of steam intake and output for heavy oil thermal recovery in an offshore oilfield. In 2013, a miniaturized steam generation system that is convenient for transportation and hoisting was successfully developed and applied in the Luda 27-2 oilfield. The research team has been working in coordination from multiple aspects such as geological reservoirs, chemical efficiency enhancement, wellbore technology, and surface equipment to launch round after round of mobile thermal injection campaigns. In 2022, they successfully carried out mobile thermal injection operations for four Wells in the Luda 27-2 oilfield and the Jinxian 1-1 Oilfield, promoting the initial formation of a mobile thermal recovery technology system for offshore heavy oil. It has laid the foundation for the efficient development of heavy oil with the power of science and technology, and created a new growth pole for increasing oil and gas reserves and production.