FES earns $4M for CLOV FPSO equipment work

FES International, a global provider of fluid transfer systems, has completed a $4M project to design and manufacture 19 diverless bend stiffener connectors (DBSCs) for NOV/Subsea 7.

The DBSCs are to be installed on the CLOV floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit, in Block 17 off the west coast of Africa.

The project formed part of the preparations for drilling which started in 2012, with oil production starting earlier this year.

As part of the project, latching mechanisms on the DBSCs were tailored and manufactured to fit CLOV project specifications. The solution provided an automatic intervention which offers safer and more reliable connections.

Managing Director of FES International, Rob Anderson said: “We’ve a long-standing relationship with NOV and this is a great example of us delivering yet another smooth and successful project.

“Usually DBSCs are designed with what’s called ‘female’ latching, however in this instance, we had to amend the design and manufacture the industry’s first ‘male’ latch DBSC. We know one solution doesn’t fit all and this underlines our commitment to designing flexible solutions to suit the needs of different projects.”

CLOV is a four-field cluster on the North West sector of Angola’s deep offshore Block 17.The four fields that make up CLOV include Cravo, Lirio, Orquidea and Violeta which were all discovered over a five year period starting in 1998.

The CLOV FPSO unit has a capacity of 160,000 barrels of oil per day and connects 34 subsea wells to the unit.