Offshore staff
ANTWERP -- Mechanical completion of the floating, storage, and offloading vessel FSO Asia has been completed, according to shipping contractor Euronav. Commissioning work should also be finished by the end of this month, after which the vessel is due to be delivered to Qatar for duty on Maersk’s Shaheen field development.
Another Euronav floater, the FSO Africa, is under conversion for the same project, with mechanical completion expected in January. However, this vessel may not be ready by the contracted delivery date of Jan. 19 (nearly four months behind its originally scheduled start date).
Maersk has the right to terminate both FSO service contracts in an extreme case, but Euronav’s board is hopeful this will not happen. It claims the two vessels remain critical to the multi-billion dollar expansion program at Al Shaheen, providing accommodation, transport and storage space for other facilities on the field as well as oil storage/offloading.
10/21/2009
