Page 56: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Q2 2016)

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OFFSHORE ENERGY

Credit: Teekay Corporation completed the BW Pioneer FPSO in Singapore and sailed it to One of these is geography: GoM has a ? at alluvial plain going the Gulf of Mexico, arriving in late February of 2010. out a hundred plus miles, making it simple and cost ef? cient

Within days of the ? rst FPSO arriving in GoM, the Macon- to lay pipelines out to where production platforms are located, do disaster happened. Everything shut down. Looking back, it unlike (say) the Norwegian Trench that helped prompt devel- is dif? cult to imagine more things going wrong on the arrival opment of shuttle tankers in the Norwegian North Sea.

of the ? rst FPSO in GoM, and yet the FPSO team at Petrobras US oil and gas domestic production has been in great de-

America managed its way through it all. mand for US domestic consumption. Until the very end of

Then came an upheaval in the regulatory regime: MMS was 2015 it was even against US law to export oil from GoM to dismantled by the Obama Administration in reaction to Ma- other countries. Consequently there was no incentive to think condo, replaced with a new regulatory structure. Past process- of storing and sending the oil outside the country. Only re- es that were underway with Cascade/Chinook became subject cently in a very few particularly remote and deep waters in to reexamination and change. With Washington paranoia in GoM has necessity overridden other production and delivery the air, the regulatory climate became more dif? cult for the solutions to make FPSOs the ultimate choice.

Petrobras America team to deal with as operator. Along the In December 2015 legislation was signed into law to allow way, they were managing the shift from project to steady op- export of crude oil from the US. One of the questions that used eration. Their team deserves recognition for their achievement to be asked was “Can we export the production from an FPSO in overcoming all obstacles. to somewhere that is outside the US? The answer hitherto had to be NO. Now it would seem there is no reason why an FPSO 2012: R ECOVERY AND FIRST OIL in US GoM could not – in theory – of? oad to a foreign ? ag

At long last, production operations did start in the US GoM. export tanker and send the oil outside the country, conceivably 25 February 2012 was a day of celebration: ? rst oil. Since with good ? nancial advantage. Longer cycle times could be a then more than 81 of? oadings have occurred. On 24 April drawback and with shuttle tankers already on charter, there 2012 Shell ? led its Deep Water Operational Plan (DWOP) may be little incentive to try foreign tonnage. So it sounds with BSEE for the Stones development about 200 miles from academic at this point in market history but does offer a new

New Orleans, for an FPSO as host in Walker Ridge 551. Then option to Petrobras or Shell for their GoM developments.

in 2013 Shell announced its ? rm commitment for the design, Shuttle tankers remain a dif? cult solution for GoM, living construction and operation of an FPSO under a lease contract with the Jones Act, despite advances elsewhere in the world with SBM for their Stones development in a record 9,500 ft. that do not have these constraints and additionally bene? t water depth. This became the second FPSO in the US GoM. from a larger scale of operations to justify optimizing what 2013 also saw a Shell commitment with OSG for a time might be possible with tanker export. In 2016, the prospects charter for the third shuttle tanker for of? oading operations look doubly remote when considering the need for securing an in US GoM: the OSG Tampa, a Handymax size of products outlook of several years at reasonably stable and favorable oil tanker delivered from Aker Philadelphia in 2011, converted in prices to justify a commitment for a third FPSO in GoM that 2014 in Poland to shuttle tanker con? guration. may be measured in the billions of dollars.

The saga of FPSOs in GoM has taken a lot of energy and

T FPSO G MHE OUTLOOK FOR MORE S IN O enthusiasm over the years but realism does seem to have set

Why have FPSOs taken so long in GoM? There are some in – there may be little chance of another BW Pioneer or Tur- fundamental differences in the GoM from the rest of the world. ritella sailing into the GoM in the next decade.

56 Maritime Professional 2Q 2016| | 50-63 Q2 MP2016.indd 56 5/19/2016 11:48:07 AM