Asia's first cylindrical FPSO facility completes main structure

The main structure of China's self-developed floating, production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) facility, Haiyang Shiyou 122, has been completed in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) said on Wednesday.

After 20 months of construction, Haiyang Shiyou 122, also Asia's first cylindrical FPSO facility, has entered the integrated debugging phase.

Its main structure consists of two parts, namely the hull and the upper functional module.

With a maximum diameter of about 90 meters, the facility has a main deck area equivalent to 13 standard basketball courts. It is designed with a maximum displacement of 100,000 tonnes and a storage capacity of 60,000 tonnes of oil.

Haiyang Shiyou 122, with a designed service life of 30 years, integrates functions of crude oil production, storage, and external transmission. It is able to provide continuous operation at sea for 15 years without docking.

The facility is scheduled to be completed in the first half of 2024, after which it will be commissioned in the Liuhua oilfields in the Pearl River Mouth Basin, providing a new option for China's efficient development of deepwater oil and gas fields.

Construction empowered by digital technologies

Measuring more than 60 meters high, the cylinder-shaped facility is dubbed as "super energy bowl."

A series of digital technologies have been widely applied in its construction, involving project design, construction and quality management, which has greatly facilitated the project's progress.

The project has independently developed a digital management system for the two gantry cranes used in installation, which ensures the precise synchronous operation of the two cranes by one operator, largely improving the efficiency and safety level.

Ma Lin, construction engineer of Haiyang Shiyou 122, told China Media Group (CMG) that they have also adopted an innovative intelligent central control system.

The system "can switch to a typhoon mode when the typhoon comes, under which the facility can realize unmanned production, providing a new model for the intelligent and digital construction of offshore oil and gas field facilities," said Ma.

The project has also developed an intelligent personnel positioning system to ensure the safety of workers in real-time.

"By applying digital technologies, it took only 20 months from the start to the completion of the main structure, half time shortened compared with the construction of other same-scale cylindrical production facilities in the world," Ran Xiangpeng, deputy construction manager of Haiyang Shiyou 122, told CMG.

The construction realized a pass rate of 99 percent, with the accuracy of the hull's main dimensions reaching a world-advanced level, said Ran.