WATCH: China’s first ultra-deepwater drillship all set to embark on sea trials

China has tucked a new milestone under its belt by naming its first designed and built drillship, which is now ready to kick off its sea trials, showing the inroads the Asian country is making in its quest to explore deepwater resources.

China’s first domestically built drillship, named Mengxiang or Dream, started its trial voyage on Monday, December 18, in Nansha, Guangzhou, China’s Guangdong Province. According to Xinhua News Agency and CCTV News, the drillship was developed by the China Geological Survey of the Ministry of Natural Resources in close collaboration with more than 150 units, designed by the Institute of China Shipbuilding and built by Huangpu Wenchong.

This drilling vessel, which can travel 15,000 nautical miles and last 120 days without returning to port, comes with a length of 179.8 meters and a width of 32.8 meters. The drillship is capable of operating in various navigational areas worldwide and can carry out drilling operations 11,000 meters below sea level.

Chinese media outlets report that the Mengxiang drillship has one of the world’s most advanced drilling systems and a comprehensive onboard laboratory, covering nine scientific disciplines. As a scientific research vessel, it can realize the monitoring of the whole process of drilling operations and the coordination of scientific experiments.

Therefore, the drillship is expected to contribute to the exploration and exploitation of marine energy resources, national energy security, and maritime power construction. While the drillship’s sea trials entail multiple steps, the project planners previously aimed to start the first one on December 22 to test the ship’s tower system.

Afterward, dynamic positioning and drilling trials are on the agenda. Whether the drillship will operate in the South China Sea is still unknown. Aside from other potential tasks, this unit will be used to extract gas hydrate, which is a crystalline solid that resembles ice and is supercharged with methane.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that gas hydrate is filled with natural gas to such an extent that one cubic meter of the solid releases as many as 164 cubic meters of conventional natural gas once extracted. Even though methane is cleaner than coal, it is still a greenhouse gas and one that countries agreed to curb at COP28.