Approaching to the end of the year, the Chinese Shipbuilding Industry has made a new breakthrough again. On December 26, the hull project for the world's first generic FAST4WARD Multi Purpose Floater No.1, hereinafter referred to MPF1 built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., (hereinafter referred to as SWS), a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited (CSSC), was completed and delivered to SBM OFFSHORE in Shanghai. After one year and nine months in construction, the hull is a key milestone for SBM Offshore’s plan to deliver the industry’s first standardized FPSO. From concept to reality, from engineer drawings to a real hull, it is expected to become the ‘reference’ FPSO, in the international offshore equipment market.
SBM Offshore is an excellent partner of CSSC and SWS. Since July 2017, the two parties, SBM OFFSHORE and SWS, have signed three contracts for series FAST4WARD? FPSO hull projects in succession and the EPC contracting services will be provided by SWS. At present, MPF2 is under construction in the dry dock. The Steel Cutting of MPF3 is scheduled for next year.
The Fast4Ward? Multi Purpose Floater (MPF) is SBM Offshore's proprietary generic hull design. The basic solution is a FPSO with a storage capacity up to 2.3 million barrels of crude oil. The MPF can meet a wide range of sea conditions from West Africa to South America.
Since the steel cutting of the MPF1 held in March 2018, the project teams of SWS and SBM Offshore have strictly complied with the HSSE project management standards, offshore process specifications, full product lifecycle quality guarantee system, and all construction milestones, maintained close communication, kept sincere cooperation, moved the project forward, overcame challenges one after another, and successfully delivered the world’s first generic hull, destined to become a large production capacity FPSO.
SWS is a leader on offshore engineering and construction in China. As we all know, offshore industry is typically high-tech, high-input, high-risk and high-value-added. As the backbone enterprise of Chinese offshore equipment manufacturing, after 20 years of development, SWS has successfully built 1/1.2/2 Million BBL FPSOs, the 3,000-meter deep-water semi-submersible drilling rig “HAI YANG SHI YOU 981” which was awarded the National Science and Technology Special Award, as well as a large number of offshore equipment such as JU2000, CJ46, and CJ50 jack-up drilling rigs. All of these have fully showed its strong offshore engineering and construction capabilities, and established a good brand image in the industry.
Today, the world’s first Fast4Ward? MPF has been transformed from concept to reality, which once again proves the strength and ambition of Chinese manufacturing, and the key position of SWS.
