Australia Takes Leading FPSO Role in Region

All newbuild floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels slated for deployment in the Oceania region from 2019 to 2025 will operate in Australia, according to a new report from GlobalData.

“In Australia, FPSOs are primarily being deployed to develop conventional natural gas fields,” Soorya Tejomoortula, oil and gas analyst with GlobalData, said in a written statement emailed to Rigzone.

The new GlobalData report, “Q1 2019 Global FPSO Industry Outlook – Australia Leads FPSO Deployments in Asia-Pacific,” notes that the five FPSOs set to begin operations offshore Australia from this year to 2025 will be tied to the following projects:

• ConocoPhillips, SK E&S Australia Pty Ltd and Santos Offshore Pty Ltd’s Barossa development
• The Woodside Energy Ltd.-operated Browse 1 and Browse 2 projects
• Carnarvon Petroleum Ltd.’s Buffalo redevelopment project
• Shell Australia, SGH Energy and Osaka Gas’ Crux project

The region with the most planned and announced FPSO additions by 2025 is South America, the GlobalData report finds. According to the firm, Brazil will account for 23 of South America’s 30 new FPSOs.

“Brazil is deploying FPSOs to develop subsalt hydrocarbon reserves in the Campos and Santos basins,” Tejomoortula explained.

South America’s remaining FPSOs are destined for the Falkland Islands (four) and Guyana (three), GlobalData added.

According to the report, the breakdown of the FPSOs bound for regions other than Oceania and South America from 2019 to 2025 include:

• Africa: 14
• Europe: six
• North America: five
• Asia: four
• Middle East: one

“Mexico leads North America with proposed deployment of three FPSOs, while India leads Asia with two FPSOs,” said Tejomoortula. “In the Middle East, Israel is the only country with a planned FPSO, Karish, which is expected to commence operations in 2021.”