FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading)
An FPSO is a ship-shaped floating offshore facility that receives produced hydrocarbons from subsea wells, separates and treats them, stores the oil in its hull, and offloads to shuttle tankers — inspected to a combination of marine-class (DNV, ABS), API, and operator-specific NDT scopes.
Definition
FPSO NDT scope includes hull inspection (class-society driven), topsides process equipment (pressure vessels, piping, heat exchangers per API 510/570), risers and turret, and mooring chains. Confined-space entry, marine coatings, and salt-air corrosion drive specific NDT challenges.
What it is
A floating production, storage and offloading vessel — a ship-shaped or converted hull carrying process facilities, with crude stored in the hull and periodically offloaded to a tanker.
Damage mechanisms in service
Inspection combines marine classification requirements with process plant integrity: hull structure and ballast tanks under class survey, topsides process equipment under pressure equipment regimes, and the turret and mooring under their own. Fatigue is a dominant hull mechanism because the structure is permanently on station in a seaway.
Governing codes
Classification society rules govern hull and marine systems; API and ASME codes govern topsides; API 579 supports fitness-for-service where damage is found.
The common oversight
Treating hull and topsides as separate integrity worlds. Hull deflection affects topsides supports and piping stress, and the interfaces are where problems concentrate.
Where FPSO fits in an inspection programme
A term is only useful when it connects to a decision. FPSO appears in written procedures, in technique sheets, and in the records an owner or accreditation body reviews afterwards — which means the way it is defined in your documentation has to match the way it is applied on site. Where the two drift apart, audits find it. Atlantis writes and reviews procedures against the governing codes, trains inspection personnel to apply them, and builds the record-keeping that makes the evidence retrievable years later. Procedure development and code consulting · NDT training and certification · Ask us about your programme.
Related terms
- Riser — A riser is the pipe segment that conveys produced hydrocarbons from the seabed to a surface facility (platform or FPSO), subject to dynamic loading, corrosion, and fatigue, inspected by ROV-deployed UT, ACFM, and visual methods.
- Jacket — A jacket is the steel tubular space-frame substructure of a fixed offshore platform, founded on piles and supporting the topsides above the waterline, inspected for fatigue cracking at nodes, marine growth, and CP performance.
- Topsides — Topsides are the surface modules of an offshore facility (platform or FPSO) above the splash zone — including process equipment, utilities, accommodation, and helideck — inspected per API 510/570/653 with the additional challenges of offshore logistics and mar
- Wellhead — A wellhead is the pressure-containing surface assembly at the top of an oil or gas well that provides the structural and pressure interface to the casing strings and supports the Christmas tree and other surface equipment.
Further reading
offshore platform inspection subsea ndt challenges
More asset-type terms
Pressure Vessel · Storage Tank · Heat Exchanger · Fired Heater · Pipeline · Christmas Tree · Blow-Out Preventer · Valve · Flange · Gasket
Where this comes up in practice
Terms like this one appear in three places that matter commercially: the written practice that governs how your personnel are qualified, the procedures and technique sheets that define how an examination is actually performed, and the evidence an auditor or client asks for when they want to know why an inspection was accepted. Getting the terminology right is the easy part; being able to produce the qualification record, the calibration traceability and the procedure revision that applied on the day of the inspection is the part that decides audits.
Atlantis NDT provides NDT training and certification against ASNT SNT-TC-1A and ISO 9712, ASNT Level III consulting for written practices and procedure approval, inspection management software that holds qualification, calibration and procedure-revision evidence in recoverable form, and an asset integrity platform that binds inspection results to the asset they describe. Browse the full NDT glossary or ask a Level III directly.