Many of the vessels featured in this section tend to be newbuilds and new designs, but the spotlight this month falls deservedly on a ship that undeniably changed the way the E&P industry approached floating production as the solution for exploiting small- to medium-sized fields.

The venerable Petrojarl 1 recently entered drydock at Damen Shiprepair’s yard in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for a yearlong $175 million facelift after clocking up nearly three decades of almost faultless operations.

Originally known as the Production Test Ship, the FPSO vessel’s first outing was on Norsk Hydro’s Oseberg Field in 1986, quickly demonstrating to the industry the value and inherent flexibility of this type of production facility.

Historically, the Petrojarl 1 has achieved an outstanding average production reliability rate on varied projects of between 96% and 99%, all of which have been in the harsh-environment North Sea. Its ability to act essentially as a vacuum cleaner to tap what would otherwise be marginal fields, incurring low upfront costs and avoiding decommissioning issues, enabled the exploitation of reservoirs that may otherwise never have been produced.

The list of fields on which the FPSO vessel has been stationed is impressive: Oseberg, Troll, Lyell, Fulmar, Balder, Fife, Fergus, Flora, Angus, Hudson, Blenheim, Kyle and Glitne.

Current owner Teekay Offshore is now having this grand old lady upgraded for her next charter across the Atlantic in warmer climes on a five-year contract as an early production system for Queiroz Galvão Exploração e Produção. It will produce the post-salt Atlanta heavy oil field in Brazil’s deepwater Santos Basin.

Having first undergone four months of preliminary work alongside the yard, the vessel was then moved in April into Damen’s 307-m- (1,007-ft-) long by 47-m- (154-ft-) wide drydock No. 8, where it is now receiving comprehensive upgrade and modification work on its hull and topsides. The process systems (ie. the separation train and produced water topsides) also are being converted, and the vessel is being prepared for full Brazilian compliance.

Although long in the tooth, the Petrojarl 1 remains impressively productive. The current upgrade will extend its useful life by at least 15 years, and it is expected to generate an annual cash flow from operations of $55 million to $60 million per year.

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