This week’s interesting ship is the BW Pioneer, which Keppel Shipyard Limited (Keppel Shipyard) has just announced is on track to be delivered BW Pioneer Ltd, an affiliate of BW Offshore.  The vessel will be the first floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for the US Gulf of Mexico. Named today at Keppel Shipyard, the vessel BW Pioneer will be turret moored at a water depth of about 2,600 meters – by far the deepest for an FPSO.

The FPSO, which is nearing completion, has achieved an impressive safety record of more than 4 million incident-free man-hours to-date. BW Pioneer has been leased by Petrobras America Inc. to operate in the Cascade and Chinook fields of the US GoM, with production scheduled for the first quarter of 2010.

Designed to handle the harsh operating conditions in GoM, BW Pioneer is equipped with an internal disconnectable Submerged Turret Production (STP) mooring system and outfitted with advanced safety features to withstand environmental loads from currents, waves and wind. In the event of an approaching hurricane, this highly advanced safety feature will allow the FPSO to disengage from site and move on her own propulsion to seek sheltered waters.

BW Pioneer has a storage capacity of about 600,000 barrels of oil, a process capacity of 80,000 bopd and gas export facilities of 16 mmscfd.

Click HERE to read more from Keppel Corporation

FPSO delivery photos from the gCaptain archives… enjoy!

Ever wonder how a huge FPSO is delivered to it’s destination? Shipspotting forum points us to Seven Marine’s photos of a recent heavy lift operation:

The FPSO Sevan Voyageur left Yantai Raffles Shipyard in China this morning. The FPSO is placed onboard a dry tow vessel and is on its way to the Keppel Verolme shipyard for topside hook-up and commissioning. FPSO Sevan Voyageur will be installed on the Shelley field in the central UK North Sea in 2008, under a five year contract with Oilexco North Sea Ltd.

Full sized photos HERE.

by bhophoto

HDR photo of an FPSO being built at the Hyundai Shipyard in Korea. This is only the thumbnail… Click on the photo for a larger view!

For more HDR photos of shipyards visit Flickr: LINK

CDR Salamander features China’s largest FPSO on Ugly Ship Thursday. He writes;

A ship only a Captain could love. I don’t think anyone will be making those cool mahogany models of it anytime soon, but I ask you to BEHOLD and up close and personal shot of the 300,000 DWT $230 million Hai Yang Shi You 117, China’s biggest floating production, storage and offloading vessel.

Our Ugly Ship pick is the Norwegian Gem, as photographed by the Lisbon Cruise Bog:

The Fairmont Summit is not much prettier but it is a working ship.

Can you believe an FPSO can actually be beautiful or that people actually pay to board the Norwegian Gem? Shocking, we know.

Photo slideshow of the world’s largest ship ever built the (now) FSO Knock Nevis.

A graphical Comparison: [Continue Reading →]