FPSO-H Preliminary Design Approach

Brazil Campos Basin is under large offshore oil production activity. Many new giant oil fields are under development. In many oil fields Brazil has been using ship tankers converted as FPSO platform vessel. At this moment four FPSO are in final construction phase to be installed in Campos Basin (P-43, P-48, P-50 and P-54). Many oil cargo tankers are transformed to work as FPSO. Although they are showing good characteristics, some problems are rising. The turret design approach was used in the primary FPSO’s design phase but recently the spread mooring system is also under installation in Campos Basin. Two converted FPSO’s (P-43 and P-48) were installed recently using spreading mooring system. The P-43 was installed at 800 m of water depth in Barracuda field at Campos basin. It is brother P-48 is installed at Caratinga field. Both platforms are designed to produce 300.000 barril/day. New ideas about Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) system have been in focus since some projects started working in an appropriately FPSO design direction. The Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at COPPE/UFRJ has been investigating a new FPSO design and many ideas are under evaluation. One of these ideas is implement a ballast tank system to improve the floating platform behavior in waves with less structure stress. This paper presents the FPSO-H preliminary design. The aim of this project is investigate a new conception where deck are is used to separate accommodation and production plant. Also, the design applied the idea that the number of tanks should be increased to allow better weight distribution and improve the tanks inspection plain. In addition the design includes ballast tanks to increase the operator ability to control stability and vessel motion. The paper presents a case study of FPSO-H design for a Campos basin field. Graphics and tables shown the main results and recommendations are highlights for future work.