China National Offshore Oil Corp, the country's largest offshore oil explorer, announced on Friday it has completed the construction of its 17th floating production, storage and offloading unit valued at 2.7 billion yuan ($440 million).

The FPSO will be used for the processing of hydrocarbons and storage of oil and become a key component of oil production in the South China Sea and the Bohai Sea, said the company.

The unit has a daily crude processing capacity of 56,000 barrels, which will raise the efficiency of China's offshore oil exploration and production. It will go into operation by the end of the month.

With a displacement of 35,000 metric tons, the unit is 266.64 meters long and 50.5 meters high, the equivalent of two football pitches and a building 17 stories high.

"As oil and gas exploration companies are developing offshore energy resources at a faster speed to meet growing demand, the competition among companies will become more fierce in future, which provides a great opportunity for the FPSO industry," said Zhang Wukui, deputy manager of CNOOC Energy Technology and Services Ltd, CNOOC's subsidiary and operator of the unit.

Zhang said a potential FPSO market is forming in Asia and CNOOC will make every effort to make the most of the opportunity. The company now has the ability to design and build different FPSO units based on various needs.

"The design, construction and installation of FPSO technology shows a country's industrial level as well as its ability in offshore energy development," said Zhang.

Up to 80 percent of the 353 large and medium-sized components of the new unit are from Chinese suppliers.

Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, said China's offshore oil exploration is an important channel to supplement onshore energy output whose growth is declining.

"Meanwhile, China can raise its deep-sea oil and gas equipment manufacturing technology through the development of the exploration industry," Lin said.

(China Daily USA 08/11/2014 page16)