THE floating production, storage and offloading vessel being built for Equinor's $6 billion Johan Castberg project in Norway's Barents Sea had its well-publicised problems during the hull construction phase but is now taking shape nicely at a Norwegian shipyard. The FPSO is the largest that Equinor has built, and its vast-ness dominates Aker Solutions' shipyard in Stord on Norway's southwest coast. Including the helideck, the floater is 313 metres long, the same length as three football fields. It has a production capacity of 190,000 barrels per day of oil and storage capacity of about 1.2 million barrels. Associated gas will be reinjected into the field's reservoir. The plan is to locate the FPSO on the Johan Castberg field for 30 years. The floater does not have propulsion machinery, only thrusters to keep it in position when offloading oil to shuttle tankers, an Equinor spokesperson tells Upstream. The FPSO was transferred to Norway last April following a difficult phase in Singapore, where the hull was built. Construction was challenged due to the impacts of the Covid pandemic on the Singaporean fabricator Sembcorp Marine. The shipyard had to close for a long period and access to skilled workers was stifled by travel restrictions and other measures.
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