The Qingdao West Coast New Area is taking advantage of its seafront location to develop oceanic industry and marine economy, and the strategy is yielding significant benefits.

"The oceanic industry has been the development orientation from the founding of the Qingdao West Coast New Area in 2014," said Li Fengli, director of the administrative committee of the Qingdao West Coast New Area. "After four years of development, the marine economy, especially the oceanic heavy industry, has achieved sound development."

In 2017, the total output value of the marine industry hit 101.9 billion yuan ($15.89 billion), representing a year-on-year growth of 18 percent.

The Qingdao West Coast New Area has 117 marine industrial enterprises that generated operational revenue of more than 20 million yuan each in 2017.

The 117 enterprises' gross output value hit 139.4 billion yuan in 2017, accounting for 28.5 percent of the entire new area, and representing growth of 16.5 percent from the previous year.

One of the outperformers among the marine industries was the naval architecture industry, which generated output value of 15 billion yuan last year.

The Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co, or Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilidng, is an outstanding representative of the naval architecture industry.

The company is devoted to manufacturing top-ranking marine engineering equipment, including large, special freighters, drilling platforms and some large-sized complete sets of equipment.

Last year, Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding produced a state-of-the-art semi-submersible, intelligent fish farm, a successful example of industry transformation and upgrading.

"The fish farm, delivered to Norway last year, has been operating smoothly and will usher in its first harvest season this September," said Gu Kechao, vice-president of Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co.

"The intelligent fish farm integrates world-leading marine design and manufacturing, Norway's advanced aquaculture techniques and modern, green farming concepts, setting a landmark for global fish farming," Gu added.

"The intelligent fish farm, with 69 meters height, 110 meters diameter and 7,700 metric tons weight, can accommodate 250,000 cubic meters of water and farm 1,500,000 fish at the same time. And the death rate of the fish is estimated to be less than 2 percent," said Ding Shiming, vice-president of Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding.

In addition, the company achieved a breakthrough in its traditional, dominant industry－shipbuilding.

Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding successfully produced the 400,000-metric-ton very large ore carrier, or VLOC, featuring the latest in green technology, safety techniques, energy conservation and environmental protection this year.

Gu said the latest VLOC can help to cut oil consumption by 18.8 percent, which makes the carrier much more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly than earlier generations of such ships.

"Compared with the last generation 200,000 metric ton VLOC, the 400,000 metric ton VLOC can cut transportation costs by 30 percent for certain weights of iron ore," Gu added.

As a leading general contractor constructing offshore oil and gas-exploiting facilities in China, Offshore Oil Engineering Co is a large part of the effort to build the marine industry in the Qingdao West Coast New Area.

The company specializes in constructing facilities used on offshore oil and gas fields, such as floating drilling platforms for deep water.

It participated in a significant energy cooperation program between China and Russia－the Yamal liquefied natural gas project.

The Yamal LNG project is located above the Arctic Circle, an extremely severe construction environment. The cold, stormy environment placed greater-than-normal demands on construction techniques.

Offshore Oil Engineering Co stood the tests and delivered the project last year.

The 400,000-metric-ton very large ore carrier developed by Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co. ZHANG JINGANG/FOR CHINA DAILY