This project involves offshore (underwater) oil and gas pipeline gathering equipment, and belongs to the technical field of offshore oil and gas development and exploitation engineering. It mainly solves the technical problems of underwater pipeline connection in marine (underwater) oil and gas development and production projects.
During the entire installation process of offshore oil and gas field mining equipment, underwater pipeline connection technology has been widely used and is a key, difficult and hot spot in offshore engineering. Prior to this, domestic underwater pipeline connection technology mainly relied on imported equipment from the United States, which was cumbersome to operate, expensive, and extremely costly to maintain and maintain. Moreover, some oil and gas fields are close to the waterway of our military's submarines. It is possible to install reconnaissance instruments in underwater oil and gas production equipment to know the entry and exit of our military's submarines like the back of the hand, posing a great hidden danger to national maritime security.
According to the requirements of the National Marine Development Plan, my country will actively commit to the exploration and development of marine oil and gas resources in the next 10-20 years, especially in the deep sea field. Therefore, it is urgent to serialize and complete sets of domestic equipment for offshore oil and gas exploration. Our company established a mechanical locking underwater pipeline connector project team in March 2010. After repeated design modifications and prototype tests, we developed a new underwater pipeline connector with my country's independent intellectual property rights. It was used in November 2010 in the CNOOC Yacheng 13-4 gas field to connect the deepwater submarine oil and gas transmission pipeline in the South China Sea. The traditional underwater pipeline connection technology is directly operated by divers in shallow water (within 100 meters), and launched by underwater robots (ROV) beyond 100 meters. Not only does it consume a lot of manpower and material resources, but it is also inconvenient to center the submarine pipeline. It is easily affected by weather, sea conditions and water temperature, often leading to delays in project construction periods. The new mechanical locking underwater pipeline connector developed by our company has the following innovations:
(1)A new guiding and centering mechanism is adopted. Through underwater robot simulation operation verification, automatic guiding and centering is realized during the underwater installation process, significantly improving the convenience and reliability of pipeline connection;
(2)Original processing processes such as porcelain and XYLAN are used on the surface of the parts, and high-strength corrosion-resistant alloys are welded in the flow channel. Through temperature and pressure cycle tests, the service life of the connector under seawater corrosion conditions is greatly extended;
(3)Aiming at the high temperature, high pressure and high corrosion environment of submarine oil pipelines, the connector adopts a new metal material sealing structure, which can be used for a long time under high temperature, high pressure and high corrosion conditions;
(4)The unique hoop mechanism achieves locking. Through long-term vibration performance tests, it has been proved that it can effectively prevent the connector from loosening during long-term use.
The mechanical locking underwater pipeline connector developed in this project has been put into use and has been serialized and used in many offshore oil and gas fields.
In November 2010, the Yacheng 13-4 project of China National Offshore Oil Corporation was delivered. It has been used in the South China Sea so far, with stable performance and no problems.
In October 2012, it was used in the Liuhua 11-1 underwater Christmas tree maintenance and reconstruction project in the South China Sea and will be put into use in May 2013.
In December 2012, a contract for the design and manufacturing of Nanhai PY35 -2/35-1 underwater Christmas tree was signed. This type of underwater pipeline connector will be used and is expected to be put into use in early 2014.
In addition, many technical communications have been conducted with relevant project teams regarding the Wenchang Oilfield and Bohai Oilfield in the South China Sea, including detailed technical communication on this type of underwater pipeline connector.
The successful research and development of mechanical locking underwater pipeline connectors has broken the monopoly position of foreign companies and filled gaps in relevant national technical fields. It has created considerable economic benefits for the company and promoted the development of relevant domestic industrial chains.