Lankhorst to supply mooring lines for Liza Unity FPSO

Mooring rope specialist Lankhorst Offshore has been awarded a contract by SBM Offshore to supply the mooring lines for the Liza Unity floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for ExxonMobil’s Liza oilfield offshore Guyana.

Lankhorst said that this award followed the successful deployment of Lankhorst mooring lines for the Liza Destiny FPSO mooring system also on the Liza field.

The Liza Unity FPSO will be spread moored at a water depth of 1,600 meters with 20 Cabral 512 deepwater mooring lines with a minimum breaking strength of 12,300 kN.

Each mooring line measures 2,320 meters in length, totaling 46,400 meters. When deployed, the mooring line will comprise a chain top segment, polyester rope middle segment, and chain bottom segment connected to a suction pile anchor.

The Cabral 512 rope construction features a specially designed filter, preventing ingress of sand while the mooring lines are pre-laid on the seabed ahead of the Liza Unity FPSO arriving on station.

The Liza Unity is based on SBM Offshore’s Fast4Ward FPSO design. For the two Liza FPSOs, Lankhorst developed a standardized deepwater mooring model to reduce lead times.

In addition to reducing the number of shipping reels by loading longer mooring line lengths or multiple segments on each reel, Lankhorst also introduced reusable shipping rope reels and cradles which can be returned to its manufacturing facilities.

These enable a more sustainable supply of deepwater mooring lines. The Liza Unity mooring lines will reuse the 16 shipping reels returned from the Liza Destiny mooring.

Neil Schulz, sales director at Lankhorst, said: “We fully support SBM Offshore’s Fast4Ward FPSO design approach. By introducing a standardized manufacturing model combined with reusable shipping reels, we too are playing our part in reducing the capital costs of deepwater mooring and increasing sustainability.”

The Liza Unity FPSO hull arrived at Keppel in Singapore in mid-January 2019 following its journey of 2,300 nautical miles from the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding and Offshore (SWS) yard in China.

To remind, SBM ordered the MPF1 hull on speculation in July 2017, hoping for an improvement in the market.

The MPF1 hull was allocated to the Liza Unity FPSO for offshore Guyana, following the final investment decision by ExxonMobil in May 2019. ExxonMobil targets Liza Phase 2 start-up in early 2022. The vessel will work on the Liza field in the Stabroek block circa 200 kilometers offshore Guyana.

The FPSO is designed to produce 220,000 barrels of oil per day, to have associated gas treatment capacity of 400 million cubic feet per day and water injection capacity of 250,000 barrels per day, and will be able to store around 2 million barrels of crude oil.

In December 2019, SBM ordered two new FPSO hulls in China. These will be SBM’s fourth and fifth hulls ordered under the company’s Fast4Ward program.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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