FPSO hull design obtains ABS’ seal of approval

December 4, 2025, by Melisa Cavcic

The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), a classification society, has bestowed an approval in principle (AiP) to Finland’s marine engineering player Deltamarin and China Merchants Heavy Industry (CMHI) for a new versatile floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) hull design.

The AiP certificate, which was awarded on December 3, 2025, at Marintec China in Shanghai, is said to confirm the feasibility of “a robust, fatigue-friendly hull” optimized for multiple field locations, including deepwater operations west of Africa.

The unit comes with a length of 285 meters, crude oil storage capacity of 1.5 million barrels of oil (bbl), and a topside capacity of 25,000 MT.

Deltamarin, in collaboration with CMHI, also developed two additional hull variants with 1 million bbl and 2 million bbl capacities using parametric modeling, perceived to enable rapid adaptation to varying operational conditions while preserving structural efficiency and reliability.

This follows ABS’ launch of a real-time 3D structural digital twin life-cycle management solution, tailored for FPSO, floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG), and floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) owners and operators.

Meanwhile, China Merchants Jinling Shipyard (Weihai) recently booked Deltamarin to design six new methanol-ready roll-on/roll-off passenger (Ro-Pax) vessels ordered by Grimaldi.