Activity has held steady at Chinese fabrication yards thanks to a number of floating production, storage and offloading units recently completed or under construction and scheduled for delivery this year.

Yards are at various stages of completing 19 FPSO hulls and 12 topsides, which accounts for about 75% of the market share of the 24 FPSOs currently under construction.

Most of the FPSO fabrication jobs are being handled by five yards: Cosco, Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS), China Merchants Heavy Industry, CIMC Raffles and Offshore Oil Engineering Company (COOEC).

The yards have several FPSO projects under way for SBM Offshore and Japanese floater company Modec for operation in Guyana and Brazil.

The latest floater to be delivered is the Miamte FPSO, designed to handle 90,000 barrels per day of oil, 2.1 million cubic metres per day of gas and 120,000 bpd of injected water for Eni's Amoca shallow-water project off Mexico.

Cosco converted the FPSO from the Felicity Modec suezmax crude carrier at its facility in Shanghai.

The floater sailed away on 20 December to Singapore for installation of the remaining modules being built at Keppel Shipyard under a subcontract from Modec, before it heads to Mexico in about six months.

Brazil delivery

In November, Modec also took delivery from Cosco of a floater destined for a Petrobras-operated pre-salt oilfield in Brazil's Santos basin.

The Carioca FPSO, being chartered by state-controlled Petrobras for a 21-year period, will be installed in 2140 metres of water and has capacity to produce 180,000 bpd of oil and 6 Mmcmd of natural gas.

Cosco Dalian is now building part of the topsides modules and hull for the Buzios 5 FPSO — known as MV32 — as a subcontractor for Modec, as well as the hull for Sepia Carioca FPSO, known as MV 30, for Modec. Both will work offshore Brazil.

Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (DSIC) cut first steel last November on an FPSO destined for Norwegian oil giant Equinor's Bacalhau pre-salt development off Brazil.

DSIC is responsible for engineering and construction of the the hull and living quarters as well as the marine system commissioning and part of the topsides modules.

The double-hull floater will be built to Modec’s M350 design, with a hull around 364 metres long, 64 metres wide and 33 metres deep, and with storage capacity of around 2 million barrels of crude.

DSIC is currently building topsides and hulls for the Mero 1 and Marlim 1 FPSOs as a subcontractor for Modec. Both are set for operation for Petrobras off Brazil.

New FPSO orders have continued to trickle in recently. Earlier this year, SBM offered SWS a deal to build the MPF 4 hull under the Dutch floater specialist's Fast4Ward concept, which is aimed at faster delivery of projects.

The newbuild is likely to be deployed on the giant Mero pre-salt field in Brazil’s prolific Santos basin, SBM having emerged as the sole bidder in the Petrobras tender calling for the charter of a fourth FPSO, Mero 4, for the field.

Another deal involves CIMC Raffles, which is to build an FPSO for Malaysian contractor MISC for the Mero field.

The workscope for the Mero 3 floater covers hull conversion, topsides fabrication and integration.

Like the Guanabara (Mero 1) and Sepetiba (Mero 2) floaters that are under construction, the Mero 3 FPSO — which will be called Marechal Duque de Caxias — will be able to process up to 180,000 bpd of oil and 12 MMcmd of natural gas.

Senegal and Penguins

In January this year, Cosco finalised a deal with Modec for the conversion of an FPSO for Woodside Petroleum's $4.1 billion Sangomar project offshore Senegal.

The deal will see Cosco deliver the floater in 26 months upon arrival of the very large crude carrier Astipalaia at its facility in Dalian city in north-east China's Liaoning province.

The workscope will cover the engineering, procurement and construction of the floater’s hull and living quarters as well as integration with the topsides, which Modec has already awarded to Bomesc Offshore Engineering in Tianjin city.

The FPSO, which will be turret moored in about 780 metres of water and designed for tandem loading, will be designed to allow for the integration of subsequent Sangomar development phases.

These phases are expected to inlcude gas export to shore and future subsea tie-backs from other reservoirs and fields.

Sources said it will also be designed to compress between 2.3 MMcmd and 2.83 MMcmd of gas, with these volumes to be reinjected until markets become available in Senegal.

Some 1.7 MMcmd of gas is expected to start being piped to Senegal in 2025.

Meanwhile, the construction of Shell's Penguins floater at COOEC has hit a snag as lead engineering, procurement and construction contractor Fluor has encountered engineering challenges.

Delivery of the cylindrical FPSO to be deployed on the major redevelopment of Shell's Penguins cluster of fields in the UK northern North Sea has been postponed to January 2022, from an earlier delivery date of January this year.

Focus

Floater jobs keep Chinese yards buoyant