SBM Offshore orders FPSO hull from Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding

Dutch floater expert SBM Offshore has ordered another FPSO hull based on its universal Fast4Ward design from China’s Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS).

This will be the sixth such hull the firm ordered from SWS. The FPSO, once completed, will be able to hold 2.3m barrels of oil while the hull is 333 m long and 60 m wide.

The first four hulls were delivered between 2019 and 2023 while the most recent one, for the FPSO Jaguar, set to work on the Whiptail development within the Stabroek block off Guyana for supermajor ExxonMobil, was delivered last month.

What sets the newly ordered hull apart is the larger accommodation area which increased from 180 on the previous ones to 240.

Details regarding the end client for the completed FPSO were not revealed. The next project for ExxonMobil in Guyana will be Hammerhead. However, it will not use SBM’s FPSO design for this like before. The company revealed earlier this year that it would opt for a conversion of a VLCC.

The Dutch firm did win a contract in November to build an FPSO for TotalEnergies’ GranMorgu field development project in Block 58 off Suriname.

With the delivery of the FPSO Jaguar hull, SWS said that it had built 579 vessels and offshore platforms with a total tonnage of 125.87m dwt since its inception 25 years ago. The company was the first Chinese shipbuilder to cross the 100m dwt mark.