China’s first independently designed and built integrated large-scale fracturing engineering vessel, Haiyang Shiyou 696, was officially delivered in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, on March 10. The vessel fills a gap in China’s offshore oil and gas fracturing stimulation technologies and engineering equipment, and is of great significance for enhancing the country’s offshore oil and gas development capabilities and safeguarding national energy security.

Large fracturing vessels are core engineering equipment for the efficient development of low-permeability and low-mobility subsea oil and gas fields. Haiyang Shiyou 696 is 99.8 meters long, with a deck area equivalent to 3.5 standard basketball courts, making it the largest vessel of its kind in the world. Equipped with a full set of fracturing equipment, the vessel can carry out high-displacement, high-power, large-scale offshore fracturing operations, with overall performance reaching a world-leading level among similar vessels.

According to Xu Jie, General Manager of the Engineering Technology Operation Center of CNOOC Tianjin Branch, the vessel has strong continuous operation and material storage capabilities. It can pump 12 cubic meters of slurry per minute, equivalent to filling a household bathtub in two seconds, enabling previously difficult-to-develop oil and gas resources to become new targets for efficient exploitation.

Fracturing injects fluid into the formation through high-pressure pump units to open fractures, creating a “highway” for oil and gas flow and significantly improving the recovery efficiency of difficult-to-produce resources. China has abundant and widely distributed offshore low-permeability oil and gas resources, but large-scale fracturing has long been difficult to conduct effectively due to the special offshore operating environment.

To address this challenge, the design team pioneered a “stacked” three-dimensional layout, integrating the full set of fracturing equipment across four decks. This achieved an optimal configuration of “large capacity in a compact space.” The vessel also adopts a fully electric drive system for the first time among similar vessels worldwide, greatly improving power output efficiency and supporting continuous operations under different sea conditions. Its endurance exceeds 10,000 nautical miles.

The vessel is also equipped with China’s first offshore intelligent fracturing decision-making and command center. The system supports real-time data collection, online analysis, and intelligent decision-making assistance, upgrading fracturing operation decisions from experience-based judgment to data- and AI-driven scientific decision-making, thereby significantly improving operational safety and construction efficiency.

After delivery, Haiyang Shiyou 696 will be deployed to the Bohai Sea and other Chinese waters to carry out offshore oil and gas fracturing stimulation operations.