cost-effective option which offshore operators should
be considering.
of design and engineering support projects which
involve Floating Production, Storage and Offloading
units, known commonly as FPSOs. A FPSO vessel
is designed to receive hydrocarbons - which are
either produced on-site or from nearby platforms
or subsea templates - process them, and store oil
until it can be offloaded onto a tanker. FPSOs are
particularly beneficial in frontier offshore regions
because installation is relatively simple and there is no
requirement for a local pipeline infrastructure. FPSOs
can be a conversion of an oil tanker or can be purpose-
built.
immune to the current low oil price environment,
which has led to reduced budgets and a lack of
contract awards. However, there is an option which
operators are increasingly turning to, in a bid to
reduce upfront project capital requirements - and
this is the redeployment of an existing vessel. In other
words, rather than converting a tanker from scratch,
an FPSO can -in certain cases- undergo a series
of modifications which will make it fit for a different
project, in a new location.
economical route to explorebut it is not always
as straightforward as it may seem and needs to be
carefully investigated and planned before any decision
is made. Nonetheless, Penspen has carried out
several evaluations on behalf of clients and has been
behind a number of highly effective redeployments,
including the Rubicon Front Puffin FPSO, which has
just successfully transferred locations and begun
producing and storing oil in offshore Nigeria.
Noel Denton
Director of Engineering
& Project Management
Penspen
Middle East & Asia
Pacific
on the Rubicon Front Puffin
FPSO