Floating production storage and offloading

An FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them, and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline.

FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install, and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export oil.

[2] At the other end of the LNG logistics chain, where the natural gas is brought back to ambient temperature and pressure, a specially modified ship may also be used as a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU).

[citation needed] Originally, all oil platforms sat on the seabed, but as exploration moved to deeper waters and more distant locations in the 1970s, floating production systems came to be used.

[9] On May 20, 2011, Royal Dutch Shell announced the planned development of a 488 m long and 74 m wide floating liquefied natural gas facility (FLNG), called Prelude, which is to be situated 200 km off the coast of Western Australia and is due for completion in around 2016.

[10] Royal Dutch Shell (2013), LNG FPSO (Liquefied Natural Gas Floating production Storage and Offloading), Samsung Heavy Industries at a cost of $12 Billion.

[11] In June 2012, Petronas made a contract of procurement engineering, construction, installation and commissioning, with the Technip and DSME consortium,[12] for what is expected to be the world's first floating liquefaction unit when completed in 2015.

This can provide an economically attractive solution for smaller oil fields, which can be exhausted in a few years and do not justify the expense of installing a pipeline.

The FPSO conversion was carried out at MMHE Shipyard Pasir Gudang in Malaysia, while the topsides were fabricated in modules at various international vendor locations.

[19] A contract for an FPSO to operate in even deeper waters (2,900 m) for Shell's Stones field in the US Gulf of Mexico was awarded to SBM Offshore in July 2013.

Built at a cost of over US$ 800 million by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan, Korea, it is operated by Esso Exploration Angola (ExxonMobil).

[25] BP also selected Aker Solutions to perform the detail engineering, procurement and construction management assistance (EPcma) for the Skarv field development.