On January 5, a ceremony was held at China Merchants Heavy Industries Haimen shipyard (CMHI Haimen shipyard) to mark the completion and delivery of the restoration project of the Guoxin platform of SINO Ocean.
It is understood that the “Guoxin” platform is a JU2000E type jack-up drilling platform, which is built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding for Tianjin CSSC Jianxin, and was delivered in March 2021. The platform is designed by F&G, with a pile leg length of 166.98 meters, a large hook load of 907 tons, a maximum drilling depth of 35,000 feet, a maximum operating water depth of 400 feet, and is equipped with a Cameron drilling package and well control system.
At that time, when the offshore wind power industry was blooming, the demand for offshore wind power installation platforms exceeded the supply. As drilling rigs can be converted to wind power installation platforms after modification, SINO Ocean modified two stocked jack-up drilling rigs to make them suitable for working on offshore wind farms.
In February 2021, SINO Ocean, PowerChina Guizhou Engineering Co.,Ltd. and Tianjin Gerun Offshore Engineering signed a bareboat leasing project for two jack-up drilling rigs and three tricycle workboats for offshore wind power installation projects. This is the first project in China to transform a drilling platform into a wind power installation platform, and the “Guoxin” platform is one of them.
The “Guoxin” platform was delivered from Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding to CMHI Haimen shipyard for modification. It is reported that by adding a crane to its lifting device, it can be transformed into an offshore wind power operating platform that can adapt to water depths of about 122 m, which meets the requirements of most wind farm installations in the world.In May 2021, “Guoxin” was delivered to the PowerChina Guizhou Engineering.
From October 2021 to March 2022, Guoxin platform has been engaged in offshore wind power installation operations. After the demand for offshore wind power installation platforms has receded, offshore oil and gas drilling has recovered after years of slump.
On October 13, 2023, SINO Ocean signed a contract with China Merchants Heavy Industry (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. for the restoration of the Guoxin platform to reconvert Guoxin from a wind power installation platform back to a drilling platform.
According to CMHI Haimen shipyard, “Guoxin” platform has gone through 6 times of berthing and 4 times of loading, successively completed the deck crane modification, crawler crane dismantling, cantilever girder sliding back to be installed, power supply of drilling system, tilt test, and system intermodulation, and got the ship class certificate in January. Especially in the major node construction (crawler crane dismantling and cantilever beam sliding back to install), it only took a few days to complete the crawler crane dismantling and cantilever beam sliding back to install, and the record delivery period of 100 days won the high praise of the ship owner.
