Sembmarine completes world's first 40-year FSO vessel

FSO Ailsa will sail for the Culzean field in the UK North Sea next month.

Sembcorp Marine has completed FSO Ailsa, the world’s first Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) vessel with a 40-year hull lifespan. The vessel is also the company’s floating storage and offloading newbuild project which was constructed over 22 months.

According to an announcement, the vessel will set sail next month for the Culzean gas field in the UK North Sea. It was completed at the Sembcorp Marine Tuas Boulevard Yard for oil and gas firm MODEC and French oil supermajor TOTAL.

TOTAL, BP, and JX Nippon will be the joint owners of FSO Ailsa, which will enter service with a hull designed to have twice the average hull fatigue lifespan of other newbuild FSOs, as verified by marine assurance company DNV GL.

“A longer hull fatigue life enables ships to withstand harsher and more extreme environmental conditions, such as rogue waves, corrosion, large ambient temperature variation and thunderstorms,” Sembmarine said.

Equipped with a 430,000-barrel condensate storage capacity, FSO Ailsa also has a 25-year continuous operability without drydocking and full compliance with strict UK safety regulations for harsh-environment operations in the Culzean field, the company added.

The first quarter of 2018 remained rocky for Sembmarine as its profits sank 85.7% from $37.04m to a mere $5.32m. However, its turnover jumped 58.3% to $1.18b in light of slightly improving conditions in the industry.