【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】1512-2024: The First Underwater Facility Maintenance Training Base for the Offshore Oil Industry

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This post was last edited by Desert Fish on 2024-3-23 at 07:44. 2024: A time of blooming flowers and joy on the forum **********************【Ten Years of Progress in Chemical Processing Equipment】A continuously updated summary thread – feel free to join the discussions: https://bbs.hcbbs.com/thread-3576046-1-1.html (Source: Haichuan Chemical Industry Forum Website) ***************** On March 20, 2024, the first training facility for the maintenance of underwater installations in the offshore oil industry was officially inaugurated in Binhai New Area, Tianjin. This facility is currently the largest, most fully equipped, and most advanced training center for underwater operations in the industry. The underwater facility maintenance training base was designed and implemented by CNOOC Development Equipment Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of CNOOC. Covering an area of 6,000 square meters, it features a maximum training depth of 9 meters, with a water capacity in the training pool of nearly 60,000 tons (equivalent to the capacity of 30 standard swimming pools). It integrates functions such as safety inspections of subsea equipment and facilities, maintenance of shallow-water subsea production systems, and practical simulations for offshore oil engineering, enabling comprehensive practical training for the maintenance of underwater facilities. Once the base is in operation, it will enable integrated and coordinated training for operations involving divers, ROVs (underwater robots), and unmanned vessels, thereby enhancing the ability to coordinate various tasks and elements in complex situations and boosting the overall capability for the maintenance of underwater facilities. Inspection and maintenance operations of underwater facilities are an important guarantee for the safe operation of offshore oil equipment and facilities. However, diving is a high-risk activity; the underwater environment is wet and cold, highly pressurized, and has low visibility, which places high demands on the skills and capabilities of divers. In the past, site constraints severely limited the daily training and practical exercises for divers specializing in offshore oil engineering. The newly built base will play an important role in building a highly skilled team dedicated to facility maintenance and capable of coordinated emergency response. Leveraging its coastal location, the equipment technology company has adopted the approach of building training facilities at docks, which not only solves the issue of space but also provides a training environment as close as possible to the actual conditions underwater. By utilizing a training pool directly connected to the sea surface, along with advanced equipment such as a diving control room, air supply units, and decompression chambers, a fully simulated operational training facility is created. This facility enables standardized training in activities such as underwater visual inspection, underwater probing, thickness measurement of structural components, weld inspection, as well as underwater cutting and welding. It provides trainees with an immersive diving environment aimed at enhancing their skills in inspection, testing, and maintenance operations. In addition to the immersive \"diver\" training facility, the base is also a true all-round training site for the maintenance of underwater installations: it features platform structures, underwater production systems, submarine pipelines, and other facilities, enabling multi-disciplinary, comprehensive practical drills for the maintenance of underwater installations and the inspection of submarine cables ； It serves to build a high-skilled workforce in the field of dive services, providing support for various training and development programs such as diver qualification training, skill assessment, and skill competitions ； The base will also focus on technological innovations in the maintenance of underwater facilities, carry out research on intelligent equipment and systems, and provide support for performance testing and evaluation of domestically developed, self-reliant equipment and systems. From March 20 to 22, the underwater facility maintenance training base held its first event since completion. The Equipment Technology Company organized a competition to test the skills of divers, using a format that combined theoretical assessments with practical exercises; 20 divers competed in this contest to explore the depths of the ocean. The competition included four categories: theoretical knowledge of scuba diving operations, practical skills in using diver breathing gas quality analyzers, skills in operating underwater ACFM probes (a method for inspecting steel structure welds), and skills in dealing with emergency situations while diving. During the practical training phase, by simulating complex emergencies that may occur during underwater operations such as entanglement of fishing nets, ships getting lost, and interruptions in air supply, the emergency response capabilities of divers in such underwater situations are tested in a real-world setting.