Built by Wuhu Shipyard! The world's largest and China's first domestic large fracturing vessel has been delivered！

On March 10, Wuhu Shipyard successfully delivered "HAI YANG SHI YOU 696," the world's largest and China's first integrated large fracturing vessel. This achievement further enhances China's marine oil and gas development equipment support capabilities and contributes to ensuring national energy security, demonstrating the strength of Wuhu Shipyard.

The vessel is an oilfield stimulation vessel with electric propulsion and unlimited navigation area. It has an overall length of 99.8 meters, a molded breadth of 22.0 meters, and an installed power of 28,700 kW. It can carry no less than 600 cubic meters of proppant and meets the requirements for continuous operation with 600 cubic meters of sand and 6,000 cubic meters of fluid. The vessel's principal dimensions and total fracturing pump power rank first in the world, and its level of automation, intelligence, and integration is among the highest globally.

Currently, China boasts abundant offshore low-permeability oil and gas resources, yet their development poses significant challenges. The completion and delivery of the "HAI YANG SHI YOU 696" stands as a vivid practice by Wuhu Shipyard in implementing the national strategies of maritime power and energy security. This vessel is capable of meeting diverse operational needs, including large-scale fracturing across all sea areas, batch operations for multiple wells, and ultra-deep fracturing. Upon delivery, it will be deployed to key sea areas such as the Bohai Sea, engaging in offshore oil and gas fracturing and stimulation operations. It will help break the bottleneck in developing difficult-to-recover offshore resources, propelling China's offshore oil and gas development into a new stage of high efficiency and large-scale production.

Since the 1990s, Wuhu Shipyard has been deeply engaged in the offshore vessel sector, successfully delivering a series of benchmark products. These include a 64.8m Anchor Handling Towing/Supply Vessel (Diesel-Electric), a 64m Platform Supply Vessel, a 65m Anchor Handling Towing/Oil Recovery/Supply Vessel, a 70m Diesel-Electric ROV/Diving Support Vessel, a 6,500HP Standby Vessel, a 79m Electric Propulsion Platform Supply Vessel, a 10,800HP Anchor Handling Towing Supply Vessel, an 8,000HP Multi-purpose Standby Vessel, a 6,000HP Platform Supply Vessel, a 78m/12,200HP Anchor Handling Towing Supply Vessel, Wind Farm Operation & Maintenance Vessels, and Deep-sea Scientific Research Experimental Vessels. The shipyard has repeatedly undertaken the construction of domestic and international first-of-its-kind innovative specialized vessels, comprehensively covering diverse operational requirements in the offshore engineering field. It possesses a mature specialized vessel R&D and construction system and strong system integration capabilities.

Faced with the challenge of integrating large-scale fracturing equipment systems onto a vessel for the first time in China, and under the unique conditions of "no established precedent, no existing rules, and no prior experience," Wuhu Shipyard leveraged its profound expertise in specialized vessel construction to deliver an impressive solution.

Collaborative Efforts to Overcome Core Technological Bottlenecks

At the outset of the project, the team collaborated closely with the design institute, equipment suppliers, and the China Classification Society (CCS) to systematically tackle key technologies, including ultra-high pressure equipment integration, all-electric drive matching, and high-voltage power grid loop configuration. Addressing the specific demands of fracturing operations, a three-dimensional storage and vertical-horizontal coordinated conveying system was implemented on a vessel for the first time. Furthermore, innovative solutions for seawater filtration and storage, residual fluid recovery, as well as vibration and noise control were developed and refined, establishing a foundation for environmentally friendly and efficient operations.

Digital Simulation Enables High-Precision Installation

The installation precision of large-scale fracturing equipment onboard is critical to success. The company introduced module grouping and process simulation technology for the fracturing equipment, enabling a pre-enactment of the entire lifting and alignment process on a computer. This allowed for the optimization of the layout and the avoidance of interference in advance. Concurrently, a lean manufacturing closed-loop system based on digital simulation extended the ship's precision control technology from the hull structure to the equipment installation phase. Through real-time data acquisition and dynamic adjustments, the installation tolerance of the fracturing pump sets was ultimately and rigorously controlled to within the millimeter level. This level of precision far exceeds conventional standards and crucially ensures the stable operation of the equipment under ultra-high pressure conditions of 103.5MPa.

Confronting Challenges to Optimize Power System Response

A common challenge for offshore vessels is the "stern thruster fault ride-through" issue, where a delayed power system response can potentially lead to a total loss of shipboard power or even operational interruption. The project team, in a joint effort with the equipment supplier, tackled this problem by optimizing algorithms at the fundamental software level and repeatedly verifying data. They successfully reduced the system's fault ride-through response time from 8 seconds to 5 seconds, and ultimately resolved the fault ride-through issue fundamentally, significantly enhancing the vessel's power reliability under complex operating conditions.

Final Assembly and Integration: Constructing a Complex System Engineering Project

As the final assembly integrator, Wuhu Shipyard demonstrated strong engineering execution capabilities in this project. The vessel is equipped with a total of 610 sets of equipment, with 315 kilometers of various types of cables laid (equivalent to the distance from Wuhu to Shanghai), and approximately 20,000 pipes installed. Among these, there are over 5,000 pipes made of special materials, including special steel tubes, thin-walled tubes, copper-nickel pipes, and PPR pipes, involving connection and sealing processes for multiple material types. The team systematically overcame each process difficulty to ensure a perfectly sealed and secure fit for every single pipe.

After undergoing rigorous tests, the "HAI YANG SHI YOU 696" delivered stable power output from its 28,700kW main engine and passed the sea trial on the first attempt. Behind these figures lies solid, painstaking effort; and behind that effort is the meticulous spirit of craftsmanship.

Steady progress leads to distant horizons; further endeavor brings greater achievements.

From blueprint design to the maiden voyage of a giant vessel, and from technological breakthroughs to successful delivery, Wuhu Shipyard has leveraged its meticulous spirit of craftsmanship and a commitment to excellence, combined with superior construction capabilities, to successfully create this national heavy-duty equipment. The smooth delivery of this vessel not only validates the company's system integration capabilities in the high-end offshore engineering equipment sector but also highlights its responsibility and commitment to promoting the independent controllability of core key technologies and ensuring national energy security.

The journey is long, and only through struggle can we advance.

Looking to the future, Wuhu Shipyard will continue to focus deeply on the shipbuilding and offshore equipment sector, using technological innovation as the engine and intelligent manufacturing upgrades as the support to create more cutting-edge equipment, writing a new chapter for the construction of a maritime power and the high-quality development of the energy industry.