China’s first deep-sea floating wind power platform has completed its floating body assembly, it has been announced.

Invested in and built by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the milestone is said to be an important step in the construction of the world’s first offshore wind power project with a water depth of more than 100m, and an offshore distance of more than 100km.

According to local media, the platform will be installed in an offshore oil field, which is located 136km from Wenchang, in China’s southern island province of Hainan. The report added that strong winds and big ocean waves posed a major challenge to the design of the wind power platform.

In early November 2022, Red Sea Wind Energy broke ground on a new 500MW wind farm in Egypt and, later in the month, XCMG set a new wind power hoisting record with its XCA2600 all-terrain crane.

Once the project is put into operation, the electricity generated by the turbine will be connected to the power grid of the offshore oilfield group for oil and gas production. It will have an annual power generation capacity of 22m kw/h, saving 7.73m cu/m of fuel gas and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 22,000t.

The floating body assembly is the first in China and comes equipped with a 35m central column flanked by three side columns. It is capable of being operated in water depths of 120m.

Known as Haiyou Guanlan, construction of the platform was carried out by the Chinese offshore contractor Offshore Oil Engineering Company (COOEC).

In early January 2023, the Ducab Group said it was supplying 633km of cabling for an Egyptian windfarm project.