Can FPSOs ever decarbonise enough to clear ESG hurdles?



OPINION: Carbon footprint has become increasingly important in the design and engineering of floating production units and operators’ specifications are gradually raising the bar on what is required.

The world’s biggest customer for floating production, storage and offloading vessels, Brazil’s Petrobras, has started to follow this route with a new tender for two units featuring the company’s all-electric concept, which distributes power from a centralised gas-turbine power system and does away with secondary turbines.

Other features include deep seawater intake and optimisation of the seawater cooling, gas treatment and compression systems, as well as a hydrocarbon blanket with gas recovery to eliminate oxygen from cargo tanks that have no ventilation.