On April 26, the land construction of Asia’s first cylindrical FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading ) facility, which was designed and built independently by China, was completed. And the FPSO was officially named “Haikui No.1”.
FPSO is an “offshore oil and gas processing plant” integrating the functions of crude oil production, storage and transmission. It is mainly composed of upper block and hull, the upper block is responsible for processing oil and gas, equivalent to the production line of the factory; the hull is mainly responsible for storing the qualified crude oil, which is the warehouse of the oil and gas processing plant.
Due to the high degree of integration, high technical requirements and construction difficulties, FPSO is known as the “crown jewel” in the field of offshore engineering.
Previously, FPSOs serving in China’s offshore oilfields were familiar ship-type structures, fixed at sea by a single-point mooring system, and adjusted the direction of the hull with the wind and waves. “Haikui No.1” is a cylindrical geometrically axisymmetric structure with low sensitivity to wind and wave currents in all directions, which is better adapted to the deepwater environment.
The FPSO is of smaller, more compact and uses less steel, which significantly improves the oil storage efficiency, reduces the cost of oilfield development and operation, and effectively improves the economic applicability.
The maximum diameter of ” Haikui No.1″ is about 90 meters, its working water depth is 324 meters, maximum displacement is about 100,000 tons, maximum oil storage capacity is up to 60,000 tons,\ and it can handle about 5,600 tons of crude oil per day.
The FPSO will serve the secondary development project of Liuhua 11-1/4 4-1 oilfield, China’s first deepwater oilfield, in the Pearl River Estuary Basin.