Privately owned offshore contractor Tianjin Zhonghe Offshore Technology has chartered a shallow-water drilling unit from China Petroleum Offshore Engineering (CPOE) for potential offshore wind farm installation work in Chinese waters.

The company, headquartered in Tianjin city in northern China, is reconfiguring the CPOE 3 platform as an offshore wind farm installation vessel at Weihai Jinlin Shipyard in Shandong province.

The 20-day remodeling began last week and will involve dismantling the rig's drilling tower and cables. A crawler crane and other facilities will be installed.

Well-placed industry officials said Tianjin Zhonghe has already found a job for CPOE 3 installing offshore wind turbines offshore China as early as July this year.

CPOE 3 is a mat-supported drilling platform built by Shanhaiguan Shipyard in 2009. It can accommodate 90 people and is equipped to operate in water depths of 10 metres in shallow-water Bohai Bay.

The unit had until recently been drilling for CPOE owner China National Petroleum Corporation.

CPOE 3 is the third drilling unit Weihai Jinlin has been contracted to convert to an offshore wind vessel. The yard has finished retooling two jack-up rigs as offshore wind installation vessels for SinoOcean and China National Offshore Oil Corporation.

Offshore wind vessels are taking the spotlight in China’s offshore engineering sector as demand grows for the units.

The offshore wind market is threatening to overheat as provincial governments in coastal areas rush to install turbines before government subsidies for offshore wind power end at the close of the year.

Under the current policy, offshore wind projects that have secured approval in 2019 and 2020 have to be commissioned before the end of 2021 to be eligible for a subsidy of 0.85 yuan ($0.13) for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated.

Energy Transition

China's booming wind installation business wins another drilling rig