Exxon Mobil’s Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) Liza Destiny, the very first oil production vessel to be placed in Guyana, will arrive in Guyana in September 2019 after its departure from Singapore.
An 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. An 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 specially built for the application. A vessel used only to store oil (without processing it) is referred to as a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel.
Christened on June 22, 2019 by First Lady Sandra Granger, the FPSO is expected to arrive in Guyana in September as the country readies for first oil in 2020.
The Liza Destiny has a production capacity up to 120,000 barrels of oil per day and an overall storage volume of 1.6 million barrels.
During normal operations, there will be at least 80 persons living and working onboard the vessel. Twenty-four Operations and Maintenance Technicians, who are currently being trained in Canada, will return in 2020 to support work on the Liza Destiny.
This FPSO is a significant component of the Liza Phase 1 development which involves four undersea drill centres with 17 production wells.
“We have more than 1,000 Guyanese working for the project here and the team is continuing to do an incredible job. Their work includes everything from completions of the initial wells for production to laying pipelines and infrastructure on the seafloor to eventually connect up to the Liza Destiny for production. We’re proud of the work being done each and every day and want to thank everyone involved for their focus on safety and keeping the protection of the environment top of mind in all that they do,” says Country Manager Rod Henson.
