On March 25, the delivery and tow-out ceremony of the newly built self-installing production and processing platform “Offshore Oil 166” for the Weizhou 10‑3 Oilfield West Area Development Project was held in Nantong. Teng Lei, Chairman and President of Hainan Mining Co., Ltd. and Chairman of Roc Oil, together with leaders from the Nantong Municipal Government, Wuhu Shipyard, CNOOC Energy Technology & Services, and other partner organizations and relevant units, attended the ceremony.
With the successful sail-out of the platform, the project has fully transitioned from onshore construction to offshore execution, and the oilfield is now entering the final countdown to first production.
Since construction officially began on December 9, 2024, at Wuhu Shipyard’s Nantong base, the operator Roc Oil, together with CNOOC Energy Technology & Services, Wuhu Shipyard, LanKe High-Tech, and more than ten professional teams, has worked in close coordination. Despite challenges such as tight schedules, extensive overlapping operations, high technical complexity, and extreme summer heat, the project took fifteen months and accumulated a total of 3.2 million man-hours to successfully complete onshore fabrication, load-out, commissioning, and complex piping intersection works—culminating in this milestone of platform sail-out.
The platform is the largest, heaviest, and most intelligent self-installing mobile offshore oil production facility of its kind ever built in China. With a total weight exceeding 11,500 tons, a length of 85 meters, and a width of 46 meters, the platform integrates 3,953 pieces of equipment and combines full oil and gas processing capabilities, intelligent monitoring systems, and living support functions. It is a critical facility for the development of the Weizhou 10‑3 Oilfield West Area.
The construction of this platform has set new domestic records for weight and technical complexity among mobile production and processing platforms. From design and R&D through construction and completion, the project team overcame multiple technical challenges, including high-precision control of large modular structures and coordinated commissioning of complex systems, demonstrating the strong capabilities of China’s offshore engineering equipment innovation..
The Weizhou 10‑3 Oilfield West Area Development Project will be one of the first oilfields in the South China Sea to commence production during the early stage of the national “15th Five-Year Plan” period. It will play a key role in supporting CNOOC’s production targets in the western South China Sea by 2026. All partners have attached great importance to the project and are jointly committed to delivering a “high-quality benchmark project.
The successful delivery and tow-out of the “Offshore Oil 166” platform represent not only a major technological achievement, but also a model of coordinated government–enterprise cooperation and multi-party collaboration. The project injects new momentum into the high-quality development of Nantong’s marine economy and contributes to China’s goal of becoming a leading maritime nation.
The platform’s sail-out marks a critical milestone toward production for Roc Oil’s Weizhou 10‑3 West Area Development Project. The project team stated that strict adherence to operating procedures will continue during subsequent phases, with accurate identification of major risks, thorough assessment, and carefully prepared contingency plans to ensure effective offshore safety management. Meanwhile, drilling and completion operations in the Weizhou 10‑3 West Area are progressing in parallel. All parties will work together to ensure the project achieves safe, orderly, and on-schedule production startup.