Asia's largest cylindrical FPSO begins construction in China

Construction of Asia's largest cylindrical floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO), independently designed and built by China, began on Friday in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province.

The facility will serve the Kaiping South oilfield development project and is designed as a cylindrical FPSO – a type of offshore platform that integrates oil and gas extraction, processing, storage and offloading functions. Such installations are often referred to as "offshore oil and gas factories."

The new vessel will have a full-load displacement of more than 170,000 tonnes and a maximum oil storage capacity of 122,000 cubic meters. Its process deck will measure 110 meters in outer diameter, with a deck area roughly equivalent to 23 standard basketball courts.

As a new generation of high-end offshore oil and gas equipment, cylindrical FPSOs offer higher space utilization and greater oil storage efficiency compared with conventional designs. They also perform better in harsh deep-sea conditions.

The vessel will be deployed at the Kaiping South oilfield in the Pearl River Mouth Basin, located about 300 kilometers from south China's Shenzhen. The field lies in waters with an average depth of more than 500 meters and has proven reserves exceeding 100 million tonnes, making it the largest deepwater oilfield independently discovered by China.