New turret widens the route for risers

Floating production specialist FMC Sofec has just completed the development of a design that could more than double the number of riser pipes able to be handled by a turret-moored monohull. It is billed as suitable for water depths between 500 and 3000 metres and for fields producing between 100,000 and 250,000 barrels per day.

The turret is, of course, effectively the spinal cord of this type of platform, handling everything that has to be transferred up or down between seabed and sea surface -- oil production, injection water, chemicals, electrical power, and control signals for subsea wells -- as well as being the focal point for the vessel's pattern of mooring lines.

At present the largest numbers of risers for any turret-moored FPSO are the 47 and 45 achieved by two units off Brazil -- the P35 on South Marlim, and Espadarte.

These

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New turret widens the route for risers