ABS to certify FPSO to be built for Lu Feng 12-3 oilfield

A floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel ordered by China National Offshore Oil Company Energy and Technology Services Company (Cenertech) to serve the Lu Feng 12-3 oilfield will be built to ABS Class.

The 100,000 DWT FPSO is the centrepiece of a development plan for the field which also comprises a new wellhead platform (WHP) with a modular drilling rig connected to the FPSO through a three-kilometre-long subsea cable and pipeline.

The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) has been chosen by Lu Feng 12-3 operator, SK Innovation, as the certifying agency on behalf of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Emergency Management.

The WHP, now under construction in China Petroleum Offshore Engineering Yard in Qingdao, will be installed in 241-meter water depth and will be the second-largest ever installed in Asia, with the largest, the Lu Feng 15-1, also certified by ABS.

Matt Tremblay, ABS SVP of Global Offshore, said: “As the world’s leading offshore classification organization, we are proud to have the opportunity to cooperate with Cenertech on this important project.

“ABS has a proud track record of supporting the development of new fields and with almost 60 per cent of the global operating fleet of FPSOs classed by ABS, we have extensive experience with these projects as well. We are committed to continuing our safety leadership in the sector”.

Yao Zhiyi, project manager for the Lu Feng 12-3 oilfield FPSO at Cenertech, added: “Cenertech and the project team are sincerely grateful for the great support from ABS.

“A highly capable ABS team was engaged in the project in advance, which is a solid foundation for the success of the project and ensured it stayed on schedule. We look forward to further expert support from ABS and to working together to accomplish the project successfully”.

In recent company news, ABS has brought together leading companies in the FPSO sector to address the safety challenges produced by an ageing fleet as more than half of FPSO-type vessels are over 30 years old and a quarter are over 40 years old.

The working group led by ABS also consists of Chevron, Shell, Petrobras, MODEC, and SBM Offshore as well as The Bahamas Maritime Authority (BMA), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) Registry, and the U.S Coast Guard 8th District.