ABS Grants Approval in Principle for DSME Floater

Maritime and offshore classification society American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) has granted Approval in Principle (AiP) for the design of what it described as "a wide breadth, single row, near-shore LNG Floating Production Storage Offloading Vessel (FPSO) hull with a jetty-moored system." 

The hull design has been developed by South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., Ltd. (DSME).

The 64m wide barge-shaped hull features a GTT NO96 single row containment system with a storage capacity of 209,000 m3. It accommodates a jetty-moored system and approximately 40,000-metric tons of topside modules, which may produce 3.0~3.5 Million Tonnes Per Annum of LNG.

Due to wider breadth and different hull configuration compared to existing standard LNG carriers, various sloshing model tests have been carried out with the 6-DOF sloshing rig, driven by electric servomotors, at DSME’s sloshing research center in Korea. 

ABS said that, through the sloshing tests, DSME has verified that the new hull design and the membrane cargo containment system (CCS) can withstand the sloshing impact loads under actual operating conditions.

“ABS has been a part of the FPSO industry since its earliest days and has played a key role in the development of the industry. The benefit from that involvement is that we’ve been able to both witness and participate in the evolution of FPSOs in size, complexity and technology. This project is the next step in that evolution, and we are proud to be able to support it,” said Matt Tremblay, ABS Senior Vice President, Global Offshore.

Odin (Oh Yig) Kwon, Executive Vice President, DSME’s CTO, said: “As today’s offshore oil and gas market demands more cost-efficient and fast track projects, this single row CCS tank configuration will become a desirable model for our clients and this new line-up together with the two (2) row CCS configuration will provide greater flexibility to fulfill various needs.”