CNOOC’s Self-developed Subsea Seismic Exploration Positioning Equipment Makes Its First Overseas Commercial Application

CNOOC’s independently developed subsea seismic exploration positioning equipment has achieved its first overseas commercial application recently, marking new progress in the “going global” of China’s oil and gas exploration equipment. The breakthrough not only demonstrates the independent innovation capability of China’s marine oil and gas equipment industry but also expands the international influence of Chinese-made equipment, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Earlier this year, an Indonesian client signed a lease contract for 500 sets of the “Haimai” acoustic positioning system with CNOOC Services Limited (COSL), which will be mainly used for local offshore oil and gas exploration projects in Indonesia. As one of the core equipment for subsea seismic exploration, the “Haimai” acoustic positioning system is crucial for the precise deployment of subsea nodes and accurate collection of seismic wave signals, with its positioning accuracy and operational stability directly determining the quality of exploration data.

During the operation, the “Haimai” system has shown extremely high reliability, accuracy and stability in the complex marine environment of Indonesia. It has played an important role in helping the client ensure exploration data quality, improve operation efficiency and meet health, safety and environmental compliance requirements. Xinhua News Agency noted that the system, small in size and flexible in deployment, can capture weak seismic wave signals equivalent to 1/150 of a mosquito’s hum from 10,000 meters underground, enabling high-definition detection of oil and gas reservoirs.

Facing common industry pain points such as complex sound field multipath interference, curved sound ray propagation and low accuracy of acoustic parameter estimation, the R&D team has made technological breakthroughs after years of efforts, overcoming dozens of core technologies. They successfully built the all-scenario and fully autonomous “Haimai” acoustic positioning system, constructing a complete equipment system covering shallow to deep waters.

The system has formed two major equipment series of high frequency and intermediate frequency, including a full-chain of products such as ultra-short baseline acoustic positioning systems, secondary positioning systems and acoustic transponders, which can meet the exploration needs of different water depths in China’s major sea areas. Ruan Fuming, a technical expert at CNOOC, said the system’s 2Hz ultra-low frequency sensing capability has reached the world’s highest level, with a collection capacity four times that of conventional towed cable models.

Up to now, the “Haimai” acoustic positioning system has been successfully installed on multiple domestic offshore geophysical vessels, realizing large-scale commercial application in sea areas such as the Bohai Sea and the South China Sea. The cumulative operation area has exceeded 3,000 square kilometers, and the cumulative application scale of related equipment has reached 16,000 units. China Economic Net stated that this overseas commercial application will further promote the export of China’s high-end marine oil and gas equipment and enhance the core competitiveness of the industry in the international market.