FPSO
Chinese yard Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS) has launched a floating production, storage and offloading vessel expected to serve ExxonMobil’s Longtail project offshore Guyana.
The launch extends the Chinese shipyard’s central role in SBM Offshore’s standardized floating production program and adds to the growing fleet of vessels bound for one of the world’s most closely watched offshore oil and gas developments.
The sixth hull in SBM Offshore’s Fast4Ward standardized floater also known as multiple purpose floater 6 (MPF 6) was floated out of dry dock at the Chinese shipyard Tuesday, SWS said.
The Fast4Ward program – in which SBM orders standardized hulls in advance of project awards and later pairs them with project-specific topsides – has become a central plank of the company’s strategy for shortening construction timelines.
The MPF6 uses SBM’s proprietary generic hull design, configured with a multi-point mooring system intended for deployment across a range of offshore environments worldwide, it said.
The design is based on an FPSO capable of storing up to 2.3 million barrels of crude oil. It also features an expanded accommodation block for up to 240 personnel, compared with 180 on earlier models.
In March this year, SBM said it had been awarded front-end engineering and design contracts by ExxonMobil Guyana for the Longtail FPSO, a contract that triggered the allocation of a Fast4Ward hull for the development.
SWS has delivered five MPF hulls to date. The most recent, MPF5, is being fitted with topsides by Seatrium in Singapore and is slated to serve ExxonMobil’s Whiptail project offshore Guyana, with first oil expected in 2027.
Longtail would be ExxonMobil’s eighth development in the Stabroek block and its first designed primarily for gas and condensate rather than crude oil.
The proposed FPSO would process roughly 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day and produce about 250,000 barrels per day of condensate, according to SBM’s project specifications. It would be spread-moored at a water depth of approximately 1,750 meters and store around 2 million barrels of condensate.
