The RWO Company is supplying a complete reverse osmosis plant for seawater desalination to the international oil and gas concern Total for its Girassol project. The Girassol, the world's biggest floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) ship, is stationed 150km off the coast of Angola in Block 17 of the oilfield. The Bremen company's desalination plant will be installed aboard the FPSO in the next few weeks and guarantee reliable and independent water supply.
RWO, which specialises in water and wastewater treatment aboard ships and offshore platforms, supports the FPSO ship Girassol with a reverse osmosis desalination plant. By using this technology, 70,000 litres of drinking water a day of excellent quality and with very low maintenance effort is produced from seawater, and thus provides a reliable and independent water supply.
Block 17 is located in deep water 150km off the Angolan coast. The oil extraction operations are part of a contract between the national oil company Sanangol and an operator consortium which includes the Total oil company. Every oil well in this block bears the name of a plant, so the FPSO ship Girassol (which means 'Sunflower') has adopted its name.
With dimensions of 300m x 60m x 31m and a storage capacity of two million barrels of oil, the Girassol is one of the world's largest FPSO ships. The oil is pumped through hi-tech flowlines and at regular intervals offloaded into tankers.
(www.rwo.de)