Hyundai Heavy Industries: South Korean top shipbuilder lays keel for Usan FPSO.
Hyundai lays keel for Usan FPSO
South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries yesterday held a keel-laying ceremony for the Usan floating, production, storage and offloading vessel in the specially designed H-dock.
The FPSO being built for Total’s Nigerian subsidiary, Elf Petroleum, measures 320 metres long, 61 metres wide and 32 metres deep. When complete, the production unit will be capable of processing 160,000 barrels of oil and 5 million cubic metres of natural gas per day and storing up to two million barrels of oil.
HHI expects to complete the construction on the FPSO by February 2011. Once completed, the vessel will sail for Nigeria, where it will be installed in 750 metres of water off Bonny Island.
The H-dock, which was completed in April, is wider and deeper than normal shipbuilding dry docks and is equipped with two 1,600 ton Goliath-class cranes. HHI claimed it is capable of building an FPSO hull side four weeks faster and reduce production costs by 15% with the H-dock.