Recently, China National Offshore Oil Co., Ltd. Zhanjiang Branch came to the news that two domestic underwater ball valves of Wenchang gas field group development project in South China Sea have recently been released and accepted. So far, China's underwater valves have been successfully localized, breaking the monopoly of foreign technology, purchasing prices fell by more than 40%, greatly shortening the supply period.
It is understood that underwater valves are the core equipment of underwater production system. Underwater production systems developed in the 1960s can be combined with floating production platforms and other facilities to form different offshore oilfield development models. Compared with the construction of expensive offshore oil production platform, the system can greatly reduce investment costs and is less affected by natural disasters. It is very suitable for the development of deepwater and marginal oil and gas fields.
Compared with the land valve, the underwater valve has the characteristics of bearing external water pressure, driven by ROV or hydraulic, higher requirements for sealing and corrosion resistance. Its technology and market has been mastered in the hands of a few foreign valve companies, but it is still in the research and development stage in China.
Facing the difficulties of high import price of underwater valves, long supply cycle and limited maintenance in the later period, CNOOC's "three new and three modernizations" leading office, engineering construction department and other relevant departments pay close attention to its localization work. On the basis of previous research and development, the pilot project of Wenchang gas field group development in the western South China Sea is determined and carried out. Application.
Wenchang gas group development project plans to develop three marginal gas fields in Wenchang 9-2, 9-3 and 10-3. The resource sharing Foundation around the gas field group is poor, the water depth in the sea area is more than 100 meters, and the wind and waves are high all year round, so the downstream users have a high demand. Considering various factors, a new platform and an underwater production facility are planned to be built in Zhanjiang, which brings new opportunities for the localization of underwater valves.
The limited Zhanjiang Wenchang project team and the Offshore Oil Engineering Design Company are responsible for studying and combing the technical points of underwater valves. They actively organize experts to inspect and optimize domestic valve manufacturers, and carry out prototype manufacturing, testing and evidence collection as required.
During the whole localization period of underwater valves, the limited Zhanjiang Wenchang project team and the professional technicians of the offshore oil engineering design company fully identified the quality risk points during the development of underwater valves, tackled difficulties, and carried out all-round quality control in the process of design, materials, manufacturing and testing, and successfully solved the underwater protection with the manufacturers. Corrosion, seabed pressure, underwater actuator, valve reliability and other difficult problems, to produce a prototype, and through the performance of the American Petroleum Association, service life and high pressure chamber test, formed a set of domestic underwater valve design material selection, processing, manufacturing, inspection and testing technical documents and procedures.