SANYA, March 31. /TASS/. China's third-largest oil and gas corporation CNOOC built China's first smart offshore production warehouse system in Hainan. This was reported by the Hainan Daily newspaper on Thursday.

The 7,000-sqm facility is one of the largest in the country. It is located in the port of Matsun, where CNOOC operates since 2010. The company has built warehouses, a berth, a terminal, fuel storage and other facilities there.

Construction of the warehouse began in February 2021 and lasted a little over a year. Individual sectors of the warehouse maintain a constant temperature regime. Equipment and consumables for drilling and oil and gas production are stored in shipping containers to speed up loading processes and their delivery to production platforms.

The center is equipped with unmanned storage technology and special equipment that allows operators to monitor in real time the amount of materials stored in the warehouse, their movement, new deliveries and shipments. At the same time the system allows visualizing the warehouse as a 3D model, as well as making accurate forecasts about the time of stock depletion.

As the developers of the project noted, the center was built around an existing warehouse in the port. After its reconstruction its capacity almost doubled, but due to the application of modern technologies and unmanned machinery the number of working personnel was reduced by 24%.

After the project reaches full capacity, according to its authors, CNOOC's costs for logistics and storage there will be reduced, which will allow the company to save more than 3 million yuan (about $468,800) a year.