Floating production storage and offloading

A Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production and processing of hydrocarbons, and for the storage of oil. A FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them, and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline. FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install, and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export oil. FPSOs can be a conversion of an oil tanker or can be a vessel built specially for the application. A vessel used only to store oil (without processing it) is referred to as a Floating Storage and Offloading vessel (FSO).

Recent developments in LNG industry requires relocation of conventional LNG processing trains into the sea to unlock remote smaller size gas fields that would not be economical to develop otherwise, reduce capital expences and impact to environment. Emerging new type of FLNG facilities will be used. Unlike FPSO's apart of gas production, storage and offloading, they will also allow full scale deep processing, same as onshore LNG plant has to offer but squeezed to 25% of it's footprint. First 3 FLNG's are under construction (as at 2016): Prelude FLNG (Shell), PFLNG1 and PFLNG2 (Petronas).