BW Offshore: A new giant of the seas

This article is part of BW Groups corporate magazine, World Horizon. Download and read the full World Horizon H1 2025 edition here

FPSOs – ship-shaped platforms for oil and gas production and storage – have become vital components in offshore energy infrastructure. BW Opal is among the largest and most technologically advanced FPSOs in the world, with a host of innovations to increase safety, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and boost efficiency.

Teams around the world were involved in the build. The hull took shape in South Korea and the turret in Indonesia. BW Offshore’s RapidFramework concept, based on the experience of building BW Catcher in 2017, accelerated the process by allowing hull construction and topside integration to be carried out simultaneously.

The fabrication and integration of the topsides took place in Singapore, as well as final commissioning to ensure the vessel meets the necessary safety, efficiency and reliability standards to operate in a highly regulated environment. This involved tracking each component with over 86 separate commissioning test procedures – a total of 20,000 pre-commissioning check sheets and 100,000 mechanical completion records – to ensure every one of the vessel’s systems was ready for handover to the operations team.

Between the first steel cut in November 2021 and BW Opal’s launch, around 32 million man-hours were spent on its construction. Venu Viswanadha, BW Offshore’s Project Director, says:
“It’s the biggest project BW Offshore has ever undertaken, both in terms of size and the CapEx value – around US$2.5 billion. We’ve demonstrated that we have the capability to execute these mega-projects and bring them in on schedule.”

An unprecedented series of events, including a global pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine, meant the build took place under difficult circumstances. Marco Beenen, CEO of BW Offshore, says:
“BW Opal is a testimony to the resilience of the project team in challenging years – navigating COVID, inflation and global supply chain disruptions.”

BW Opal is destined to spend 25 years in service without dry docking, and must be able to cope with exposure to severe weather. The hull has been designed to withstand 10,000-year storms, with waves of up to 11 metres. The turret arrangement, developed with NOV-APL, is similarly hardened against the elements, and extraordinary in both size and complexity: the 13,350-ton system includes a 4,100-ton turret module with 660 tons of piping and valves.

The vessel’s topsides cover the area of three-and-a-half soccer fields, and weigh 45,000 tons. They represent state-of-the-art design, drawing on BW Offshore’s specialist expertise in operations, cutting edge engineering and information technology systems, and combined-cycle power generation with waste-heat recovery.

With the largest installed power plant on any FPSO, BW Opal will generate up to 230MW – enough to power more than 250,000 homes in Singapore. Its combined-cycle technology will lower CO₂ release by 25% compared with traditional systems. This represents a saving of 2.5 million tons of emissions over the vessel’s working life.

The vessel’s all-electric design distributes power efficiently, and heat-recovery systems harness exhaust energy. BW Opal’s advanced cooling technology makes use of seawater, and a best-in-class flare system eliminates emissions.

Viswanadha says: “In gas turbine generators, exhaust gases are usually wasted. Here, we can produce steam that’s used for power and heating resources. Conventional machines only achieve an efficiency of around 40%, whereas here it’s 65%. We also burn residual methane through a thermal oxidiser, reducing gas emissions.”

The new FPSO will soon take position in the Timor Sea, off the coast of Australia’s Northern Territory, fulfilling its 15-year contract with Santos (with a further 10 years of options). Viswanadha says:
“Production will start in the second half of this year. When operational, the vessel will feed 850 million standard cubic feet of gas into Darwin every day. It will also process 11,000 barrels of condensate each day, storing this in its tanks to be offloaded every three months.”

At the naming ceremony in Singapore, Marco Beenen paid tribute to the thousands of people whose efforts turned BW Opal into a reality.