Abstract
The oil and gas industry would never have imagined that the full electrification of floating, production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) units would be plausible one day. Fast forward to today, we are currently progressing towards an era that will inaugurate full electrification of an FPSO in the Brazilian waters by the end of this decade. The idea is to challenge the norm of replacing all gigantic gas turbines with electric motors and power the entire FPSO, a big step towards decarbonising the FPSOs.
However, the industry needs immediate solutions towards optimising fuel efficiency and curbing emissions as the full electrification method was not viable previously due to several reasons such as limits from local regulations on power plant sizing. Therefore, rather than solely focusing on the conceptual design of full electrification, several recently contracted FPSOs had incorporated a partial electrification concept that maximise electricity usage to reduce emissions, resulting in the first proven concept for the partial electrification of FPSOs.
The main goal of this paper is two-fold; First, to discuss the main features of a Partial-Electric FPSO currently contracted to operate in the pre-salt region of Brazilian waters that turns conventional loads into motorised loads. Several decarbonisation efforts implemented via reduced emissions and advanced monitoring tools will also be discussed for the Partial-Electric FPSO that is under construction in the shipyard at the point of this paper being published.
Second, to present the new technologies and concepts that the next generation of FPSOs can adopt in the process of transitioning into the full electrification of FPSOs, which mainly focus on the combined cycle power generation (CCPG). With the implementation of partial electrifications and new technologies like CCPG, this will prepare the FPSO industry ahead of the 1.5-degree target, and at the same time paving the way for the development of greener FPSOs.
