VESSEL REVIEW | Vito RPF – Shell Offshore’s newest floating production unit for deployment in Gulf of Mexico

Singapore shipbuilder Sembcorp Marine, through its subsidiary Sembcorp Marine Rigs and Floaters, has successfully completed the Vito Regional Production Facility, a massive floating production unit FPU ordered by Shell Offshore under a contract awarded in 2018. The platform itself is partly owned by Shell and Statoil USA.

The semi-submersible FPU consists of a single topside module with four columns with a total displacement of approximately 39,000 tonnes, with the topsides alone – which also contain the living quarters – already displacing around 9,200 tonnes. The entire FPU itself is of a new and simplified design, which Shell claims was chosen partly to guarantee better cost savings.

The front-end engineering design work for the topsides was carried out by Dallas, Texas-based engineering firm the Jacobs Engineering Group. Other engineered cast components were supplied by Sheffield Forgemasters International through subsidiary Vulcan SFM.

The platform also comes equipped with four circular waste heat recovery units provided by HRS. The array of valves and actuators was meanwhile supplied as part of a complete package from PJ Valves.

The FPU has since been delivered to Shell and will soon be deployed to the Gulf of Mexico in the Mississippi Canyon Block 984, 241 kilometres south of New Orleans. The field lies at a depth of 1,219 metres and has an estimated output of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day at peak production. The FPU is Shell's eleventh deepwater platform to be deployed to the Gulf of Mexico.

Sembcorp is also currently undertaking the construction of a second FPU project for Shell, involving the fabrication and integration of the FPU topsides, living quarters and hull, for the Whale development also located in the Gulf of Mexico.

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