The opening ceremony of newly established Joint Bioremediation Research Centre for Oil Pollutants was held in Ocean University of China at 3:00 p.m. on April 13, 2007. The centre is co-founded by the Chemistry & Chemical Engineering College of OUC and China Offshore Environmental Services （COES）. Mrs. Zhonghong Chen, secretary of Party general sub-branch of the Chemistry & Chemical Engineering College of OUC, and Mr. Xian Zhu, the chief engineer of Oil Production & Service Company, CNOOC Base Group Ltd, inaugurated at the beginning of the ceremony. Delegates from relevant Institute departments and the senior members of management of COES also attended the ceremony.

Derived from the former Department of Marine Chemistry, Chemistry & Chemical Engineering College of Ocean University of China was founded in 1959, and was the first officially approved department to confer Master and PhD degrees nationwide on marine chemistry. The college currently has 3 departments and an institute with more than 100 faculty and staff members. Among them there is one Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, one Nationally Acknowledged Famous Teacher, 3 National Outstanding Teachers, 23 professors, 10 associate professors, and 11 Ph.D. supervisors. Marine Chemistry in this College is a national key discipline and a key construction discipline for “project 211”and "Project 985". The college is now offering 2 Ph.D. programs in
Marine Chemistry and Marine Chemical Engineering & Technology; 4 Master programs in Marine Chemistry, Applied Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, and Physical Chemistry. The college also provides a lot of high level experts in marine chemistry and related fields to our country. The college not only possesses good equipments and complete professional literature, but also provides with maritime survey, field experiments, laboratory analysis detection, numerical simulation and more than 100 sets of advanced equipment for marine chemical engineering research and technical direction, gross 2,200 million Yuan RMB, with domestic leading research strength.

COES, the subsidiary company of Oil Production & Service Company, CNOOC Base Group Ltd, is the first company in the industry of oil spill response with the capability to deal with Tier 2 oil spill by highly qualified and experienced member of staff in accordance with international standard. COES also provides the response training, technique consultancy and recovery equipment maintenance services.

According to the agreement, parties of signed will share their advantages in personnel training, research and innovative techniques development, to which Chemistry & Chemical Engineering College is in the leading position, while COES has consolidated response services over the Chinese offshore, and intend to continue their strength with realizing the need of technical input and update.

The university has the superiority in personnel training, basic research and scientific research development. The enterprise plays a vital role in the decision of scientific research and development direction, market grasps as well as the transformation of scientific findings to finished products etc. In accordance with the principle of “the superiority supplementary, the mutual benefit win-win”, both sides will display their superiority, in order to improving the scientific and technological level of marine environmental protection and comprehensive strength together.

The establishment of the Joint Research Centre symbolizes that the cooperation between the two sides is in substantive progress. Firstly, the technology of “the coastline bioremediation for oil pollution” will fill the blank in the field of the coastline bioremediation for oil spill pollution in our country. This project researches mainly on the bioremediation for the petroleum hydrocarbon pollutant around the coastline. It will establish the biological repair technology which is suitable for different types of coastlines polluted by petroleum through the laboratory and the situ experiments. With no doubt, this project will have the vital practical significance in the maintaining of the positive cycle in the sea ecosystem, and safeguard people's health as well as the promotion economy and our society's sustainable development.

Mrs. Zhonghong Chen congratulated the ceremony and assured a full support to the workshop with technical and logistical services. Mr. Xian Zhu acknowledged the great support from the Chemistry & Chemical Engineering College of OUC so far and expected the alliance of two parties will enhance the level of technology development and maximize the comprehensive response capabilities for China territorial waters.