In January, the China National Association for Automation in Petroleum and Chemical Industry released the Decision on the 2024 Science and Technology Award of China’s Petroleum and Chemical Automation Industry. The achievement entitled “Key Technologies and Equipment for Deep-sea Controlled-source Electromagnetic Exploration” won first prize, with OUC as the leading institution. The first contributor is Professor Li Yuguo from the College of Marine Geosciences.

Deep-sea access, exploration, and development are an important component of China’s endeavor to build a strong maritime country. Marine controlled-source electromagnetic exploration technology is an emerging marine geophysical method that can identify high-resistivity hydrocarbon reservoirs and improve drilling success rates. Focusing on the country’s major strategic needs in deep-sea resource exploration, Professor Li Yuguo’s team has carried out original technological innovation and remained committed to the independent development of key technologies and equipment for deep-sea electromagnetic exploration. Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Shandong Provincial Key Research and Development Program (Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Project), and other programs, the team has tackled core technologies of marine controlled-source electromagnetic and achieved a series of innovative outcomes. The team has developed key technologies and equipment for high-power deep-sea underwater electromagnetic transmission, high-sensitivity deep-sea electromagnetic exploration, as well as numerical modeling, interpretation, and data-processing techniques for marine controlled-source electromagnetics. These innovations have strongly supported China’s deep-water oil and gas exploration, the national Extremely Low Frequency (WEM) Engineering Project for Underground Exploration, research on low-frequency shipborne electromagnetic field detection, studies of seawater-motion-induced electromagnetic noise and deep-sea geophysical surveys, delivering sound economic returns and significant benefits in industrial application and promotion.