Owner and Shipyard Perspective on Newbuild FPSO Contracting Scheme, Standards and Lessons
Authors: Adhia Gautam , Pellegrino Sean , Ximenes Maria- Celia , Awashima Yuji , Kakimoto Masataka , Ando Toshihiko 
Published: October 2008

FPSO/FSO projects are becoming more popular as the facilities of choice to develop offshore hydrocarbon resources, particularly for marginal fields and deepwater locations. This has created a potential shortage of experienced manpower to handle these projects. To ensure successful project execution, FPSO/FSO projects should be carefully planned to be efficient. In order to make this process more efficient, both oil company (owner) and shipyard's (contractor) perspectives must be taken into consideration. The objective of this paper is to provide such an owner and shipyard perspective in contracting and executing a FPSO/FSO project.

This is a very wide subject and difficult to cover all aspects in one paper. Authors intend to also present another paper later at another conference as a compendium to this paper so that this subject is comprehensively addressed.

Introduction

Authors' Companies have been involved with each other in three new build, oil and gas FPSO/FSO projects and many oil tanker projects. These three new purpose built FSO/FPSOs are shown in Figures 1 to 3. Both companies have had many other FPSO and FSO project experiences. This paper's objective is to provide the perspectives and experiences of the Oil Company and a Shipyard in executing new build FPSO projects.

Some of the major factors that are important to an oil company are:A robust Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) plan during project execution as well as operations during long field life.Good Operability (Operations Assurance - OA) including reliability, low and easy maintenance, long life and no dry docking. All of which is to be achieved with a fit for purpose, good quality FPSO with many custom features.A fair market value project cost with minimal growth during project execution - a major challenge in many FPSO projects.A contracted schedule with minimal delay to the original schedule - a major challenge in many FPSO projects.

Figure 1: Sanha LPG FPSO Under Construction for Angola (Available in full paper)

Figure 2: Escravos LPG FSO in Nigeria Operating Since 1997 (Available in full paper)

The shipyard should have similar objectives to meet the oil company's objectives, but their emphasis and priorities are somewhat different:A contracted cost based on a proposal of making a reasonable profit. This has been a shipyard major challenge in many FPSO projects.A project execution with a minimum number of changes. The shipyard can remain cost effective only by execution of projects in an assembly line and systemic process with minimum changes.A contracted schedule that can meet all the milestone dates. This has been a major challenge in many FPSO projects. From a shipyard perspective, it is important to meet this challenge as failure would lead to an adverse domino effect with other ongoing contracts due to dry dock/slip availability.A strong HSE plan. Ensuring a strong HSE plan has shown to increase productivity.

Figure 3: Anoa Natuna FPSO in Indonesia Operating Since 1990 (Available in full paper)

This paper address the following issues involved in the design and fabrication of an FPSO:Contracting Scheme;Standards and Specifications;Execution;Costs; andLessons.