Floating production storage and offloading
A floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production and processing of hydrocarbons, and for the storage of oil. An FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them, and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline. FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install, and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export oil. FPSOs can be a conversion of an oil tanker or can be a vessel built specially for the application. A vessel used only to store oil is referred to as a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel.
FPSO OSX #1 at Rio de Janeiro Coast
FPSO Mystras at work off the shore of Nigeria
FPSO Crystal Ocean moored at the Port of Melbourne
The circular FPSO Sevan Voyageur moored at Nymo yard at Eydehavn, Norway
An oil platform is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also have facilities to accommodate the workers, although it is also common to have a separate accommodation platform linked by bridge to the production platform. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or float. In some arrangements the main facility may have storage facilities for the processed oil. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical connections. These sub-sea facilities may include one or more subsea wells or manifold centres for multiple wells.
Oil platform P-51 off the Brazilian coast is a semi-submersible platform.
Oil platform Mittelplate in the North Sea
Refurbishment Station for Drilling Rigs – Corpus Christi Bay
Oil wells just offshore at Summerland, California, before 1906.