Traditional shipyards in Singapore are benefitting from booming oil & gas business, as work orders flow in for Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) and Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) conversions, states a new report by business intelligence experts GBI Research.
The report cites Singapore as the location of around 70% of conversions for the FPSO industry globally, with traditional shipyards such as Keppel, Sembawang, Jurong, and ST Marine fully equipped and responding to substantial demand for FPSO conversions, in addition to the regular ship repair work orders.
Oil and gas majors globally possess single hulled tankers that provide the perfect utility as converted FPSO vessels, which represent an ideal choice for marginal fields or small reserves where the amount of capacity required is low.
Conversion of a single hulled tanker into a FPSO unit costs around 10% of the cost of building a brand new unit, as costs and time needed for engineering, construction, outfitting and commissioning are a great deal reduced, materials and basic structural design already being present. The “fast-track conversion” is very popular, taking under a year to complete, enabling firms to bring high-priority offshore reserves to production in previously unheard of timescales.
Over 35 FPSOs worldwide are approaching the middle or end of their design life, and the limited numbers of onboard personnel able to perform maintenance operations affects the upkeep of these aging vessels. Cost effective integrity programs are therefore urgently needed in order to increase the functional life of these assets.
