Last September, the hull of Petrobras’P-53 floating production platform arrived in Brazil, following conversion at Keppel shipyard in Singapore. The topsides currently are being integrated with the hull at the QUIP yard in Rio Grande, southern Brazil, and the completed platform should be delivered during the second half of this year.
Classification society Bureau Veritas, a specialist in floater conversions, played a major role in this project, from selection of the vessel through design of the inspection systems to keep the FPU in service throughout its 25-year design life, without the need for dry-docking.
Charter Development LLC (CDC) converted the VLCCMT Settebello for this development in 1,084 m (3,556 ft) of water. The P-53 process plant has been engineered to handle production and treatment of oil at 180,000 b/d. It also will provide a liquids handling capacity of 190,000 b/d, gas compression at up to 6 MMcm/d (212 MMcf/d), and water injection at up to 39,000 cu m/d (10.3 million gal). Produced oil will be exported to the PRA-1 pumping station, under Bureau Veritas certification.
TheP-53 undergoing commissioning in Rio Grande.
Bureau Veritas (BV) also is providing classification of the vessel’s turret mooring system, supplied by SBM-Imodco. The turret, claimed to be the world’s largest, is based on SBM’s proprietary “bogie wheel” concept, with an overall turret cylinder diameter of 28.4 m (93.2 ft). The mooring system comprises a 3x3 spread of semi-taut lines anchored to the seabed, each with chain/polyester/rope/chain segments.
While SBM-Imodco engineered and supplied major items for the turret, CDC and Keppel managed fabrication and integration into the FPU. CDC also was in charge of mooring and riser design (there are a total of 75 flexible risers), procurement, offshore installation, and subsequent hook-up to the FPU.
Last year Petrobras also contracted BV for design appraisal for what the company claims will be the world’s largest semisubmersible platform. The study, which included independent calculations, concerned the revision of the basic design of theP-55, devised by Petrobras’ R&D center in Cenpes.
In January, Petrobras awarded BV Brazil the classification contract for theP-55 lower hull, recently contracted to Estaleiro Atlantico Sul, a new shipyard in Pernambuco state in northeastern Brazil owned by the Camargo Correa and Queiroz Galvao groups. The yard is in the final stage of civil/drydock construction and shop/cranes assembly, with full technical support from Korea’s Samsung.
The platform will be moored in a water depth of 1,707 m (5,600 ft), with onboard processing capacity for up to 180,000 b/d of oil and 6 MMcf/d of gas. The hull will comprise four columns supported by pontoons 19.8 m (64.97 ft) wide and 11.4 m (37.4 ft) high, and will have an operational draft of 34 m (111.5 ft).
In April, Petrobras was due to award contracts for the deck box/topsides construction, integration, and commissioning. It has already named BV as the class society for the technical specification.
Elsewhere, Total has contracted BV for classification of its 2 MMbblPazflor FPSO for Angola block 17, under construction by Daewoo in Korea. Other BV-classed giants newly arrived in West Africa are Total’s Akpo FPSO and the Moho-Bilondo FSU.
Bureau Veritas has classed numerous large FPSOs operating off West Africa, including Total’s Akpo (pictured).
The group’s non-classification work includes front-end engineering design analysis for the Peregrino field FPSO for Brazil. Operator StatoilHydro has commissioned a yard in China to convert a newbuild tanker, which will subsequently sail to Brazil for topsides integration. For BP Norge’sSkarv FPSO, currently taking shape at Samsung’s yard in Korea, BV is providing design verification of the hull and turret.
