ABB has won a contract to install the electrification and automation systems for a supertanker that is being converted into a floating production, storage and offloading vessel for use off the coast of Angola.
The contract was awarded by Malaysian-based service company Bumi Armada Berhad, which is reconfiguring the Armada Ali supertanker (now renamed the Armada Olombendo FPSO) for charter by Italian oil company Eni.
The FPSO will be the sole production hub and will be able to store up to 80,000 barrels of oil a day before offloading it to shuttle tankers.
To make the installation as safe and reliable as possible, ABB will deliver its drives and switchgear pre-installed in modular E-houses. It will also provide an integrated electrical distribution, control, safety and power management package, which will be operated and optimized by ABB’s 800xA distributed control system.
As well as providing all the power necessary to run the field, the electrical system will be able to liquefy up to 120,000 million cubic feet of natural gas a day and inject up to 120,000 barrels of water.
This order is the fourth collaboration between ABB and Bumi Armada, which is the fifth largest FPSO supplier in the world. Past projects have included the delivery of E-houses for similar floating production vessels operating off India’s west coast, the Kraken oil field in the North Sea and a complete automation package for an FPSO operating on the Balnaves field off western Australia.
This FPSO will develop the Cabaça fields, for which Eni is the concessionaire. They’re estimated to have a capacity of some 230 million barrels; the total value of Bumi Armada’s contract to supply, operate and maintain the FPSO is about $2.9 billion.