Brief introduction of artificial buoyant seabed technology

The petroleum industry worldwide is urged to continuously increase the exploration in deepwater areas as all the nations in the world demand for more and more oil and gas resources and it is getting more and more difficult to discover oil and gas on shore and offshore shallow water areas.However,the exploration and development of deepwater oilfields are restricted due to the expensive operation cost and high requirement for facilities,especially the insufficient deepwater drilling vessels.So the Atlantis Deepwater Technology Holding(ATDH) Company puts forward a new concept-ABS(artificial buoyant seabed) technology,which makes the seabed rise up artificially on the basis of the buoyancy principle of pontoons and helps realize the application of shallow water facilities to deep water exploration and development.As a result,it helps reduce the operation cost considerably,effectively maintaining the wellhead and developing margin oilfields,avoiding the negative effect of the shallow gas and the low temperature and high pressure of mud-lines on the subsea facilities,and alleviating the conflict between the limited number of deepwater drilling vessels and deepwater exploration and development.What’s more,this paper briefly introduces the concept,application,advantages,and operation of ABS technology,which is expected to be better applied and improved in the South China Sea.