Singapore’s Sembcorp Marine has awarded a major contract to China’s Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry for the engineering, procurement and construction of the hull and living quarters for a floating production, storage and offloading vessel destined for deployment offshore Brazil.

Well-placed yard sources told Upstream that in a deal with Sembmarine, Cosco’s Qidong facility will deliver the newbuild floater at the end of next year. The topsides will be built by Sembmarine in Singapore.

When finished, the hull and living quarters will be towed to Singapore for topsides integration at Sembmarine.