Offshore Timeline

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Fluor Ocean Services, Inc., was formed to provide a complete range of services in ocean and marine engineering-construction on an international basis.

Deep Oil Technology Inc. filed an application for the tension anchor system for offshore apparatus, later known as the tension leg platform. Fluor was involved in the original concept development for the earliest design of a floating production platform moored to sea bottom with tendons.

To support this project, Fluor designed the world's largest floating berth at the time and the largest single prefabricated component of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Fluor used a first-of-its-kind, unique floating deck design for supertankers.

The newest addition to the fleet of Fluor Drilling Services, Inc., WODECO VII, began work on its first assignment in the Sulu Sea, off Malaysia. Designed to meet demands for a drilling unit capable of operating great distances from a land base, WODECO provided deep-drilling capabilities in various water depths and sea conditions. The 446-foot length, 80-foot beam, and 13,400-ton displacement allowed it to meet this demand. The barge had sleeping accommodations for a crew of 98.

In 1972, Fluor Ocean Services received patents for their apparatus for diverting a pipeline and apparatus for laying pipelines. The apparatus for diverting a pipeline uses the plastic stresses to assist a moving pipeline between the top and bottom surfaces of a marine body of water. The pipeline is made of an elastoplastic metal pipe having a suitable coating of corrosion-proofing material. The apparatus for laying pipelines assisted with laying pipelines from a barge mounted reel including compound-bending means, tensioning means, and vertical support means.

Fluor Ocean Services engineered, procured, and constructed a marine crude oil loading terminal with associated underwater pipeline, land pipelines, and small process plant for Petromer Trend's Kasim Field in Indonesia.

ARCO and Pertamina joined to build a totally offshore NGL facility in the Java Sea. Fluor performed feasibility study, engineering, design, procurement, and construction management services for the site of the world's first totally offshore NGL recovery plant and first turbo expander application offshore. The project consisted of two interconnected eight-pile platforms for the NGL process plant; one four-pile platform for crew quarters; four four-pile compressor station platforms, flare platforms and bridges; 40 miles of submarine pipeline; and a single point mooring system for a 375,000 bbl. capacity refrigerated storage barge.

Fluor Ocean Services performed a site selection study to determine the most suitable site, both economically and environmentally, for an LNG receiving terminal, LNG regasification plant, and crude and condensate receiving terminal for a gasification plant. Fluor also completed a transportation study of importing crude oil and assisted in environmental impact assessment planning.

Fluor was responsible for engineering and construction management of Saudi Aramco’s Ju'aymah Terminal, one of the world’s largest crude oil storage and loading facilities at the time. The project included single point moorings, submarine pipelines, a large manifold and meter platform, an offshore control platform, an offshore tank farm and pumping facilities, and a LPG sea-island loading berth and trestle. The LPG terminal at Ju'aymah was the world's largest LPG terminal at that time. It included a 10-km trestle connecting the onshore storage to an offshore export berth. Additionally, it was the longest hydrocarbon trestle in the world.

Greece's first oil field was developed by constructing drilling and production facilities in the North Agean Sea. Fluor was responsible for design, engineering, and construction management of the project. Included were two offshore drilling platforms and one production platform in the Prinos Field, a drilling and processing platform in the Kavala Field, and pipeline to the onshore processing plant and onshore storage and shipping facilities.

Fluor was responsible for the completion and commissioning of two offshore gas oil separation plants and a gas compression plant, an onshore gas compression plant and the Tanajib central utilities plant for the Marjan oil and gas field in Northern Saudi Arabia for ARAMCO. The project included the largest gas treating / gas compression platform ever built onshore and the installation of two 8-leg jackets.

This technology relates to a method and apparatus for conducting offshore well operations in which a single platform is designed for and capable of temporary exploration and permanent production operations. The invention contemplates that the single platform can be operated in one mode as a semi‑submersible platform provided with catenary mooring and is adapted to be readily converted to a tension leg platform adapted for tension leg mooring.

The primary objective of the technology was to provide a dual purpose platform having a design useful for operation as a tension leg platform and or a semi-submersible platform.

Fluor performed conceptual and detailed engineering, procurement, and construction planning for the development of the Highlander Field oil/gas subsea production facilities. This development, which consisted of a remote subsea system linked back to Texaco's existing Tartan "A" platform, was the first in the UK to use both water injection and gas lift. The subsea and platform interconnection utilized five pipelines, three umbilicals, and pumped risers. The project required the development of conceptual and detailed designs for first-of-a-kind systems in areas of: subsea level control, subsea slug catchers, retrievable pig launchers/receivers and pump risers. Fluor also used extensive modeling of pipeline hydraulics in development of the optimum interconnection design. The Highlander Project is the world's record for continuous subsea production as it is still in operation today. This was the first use of a vertical caisson with an electrical submersible pump in the separation faculties.

The composite platform comprised an annular truncated cone of concrete which constituted the main resistant element of the platform and was designed to take the thrust of ice, and a cylindrical steel part housed inside the annular truncated cone. Watertight passages parallel to the generatrices of the cylindrical wall were provided to house piles in the peripheral ring, close to the wall. A watertight passage well was provided in the cylindrical steel part for the passage of the drill pipes. A circular running track was provided for gantry cranes used for piles handling. The composite platform for petroleum workings in polar seas had two drilling rigs placed on one half of the platform and able to work simultaneously.

Fluor provided design and procurement assistance for two drilling and production platforms for Marathon's Kakap Field development. Each 6,000-ton platform has an 8-leg 2,500-ton jacket with launch rails, 2,000-tons of 48-inch-diameter piling, and a 175-foot flare boom.

Soft seabed conditions in the Natuna Sea are similar to the Gulf of Mexico and were considered during the design. Fluor completed the design within Marathon's budget and schedule.

Fluor, in a joint venture with United Industrial Enterprise of Scotland, executed the process facilities and marine systems, and the overall outfitting and precommissioning of the FPSO facility, which treats oil and gas from subsea production wells connected by a flexible riser. The process facilities include oil/water separation (50,000 bpsd), gas compression, seawater treatment, and seawater injection into the reservoir. The project was executed within a demanding fast-track schedule. The FPSO unit had to be ready for tow to the field, fully precommissioned, within 20 months. To meet this schedule, Fluor performed the conceptual, basic, and detailed engineering and procurement of equipment--including long lead items--in 12 months. Few FPSOs have been completed in less time.

Fluor helped ConocoPhillips China, Inc. develop the largest offshore oil production facility in Bohai Bay, China. The full field development project included six remote wellhead platforms, central riser/utilities platform, and double-hull floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) system.

This was the first large-scale offshore project in the world to use disk stack centrifuges to separate water and sand from the crude oil. This system was selected, over the more traditional electrostatic treating, for its higher efficiency and greater flexibility with changing crude/water ratios.

Now located off the coast of Angola, Fluor/AMEC, as PMC provided topsides engineering, operations & maintenance support and commissioning services for the successful completion of "Kizomba A" - the largest Floating, Production, Storage, and Offloading (FPSO) facility ever built - in record time. The 12 largest process / utility modules on the ship were equivalent size and weight of the topsides of 12 conventional offshore production platforms. These 30,000-ton topsides were designed in 13 months.

Fluor, together with its joint-venture partners, provided detailed engineering, procurement, and construction support services for the project. The construction support included fabrication, hook-up and commissioning, as well as operating services. This project produced the first series of high-angle wells in the East Timor Sea. A remote wellhead platform serves as a drilling center for 14 wells. A central production and processing (CPP) complex is comprised of a well-drilling, production, and compression platform, as well as a utilities and quarters platform.

Fluor, in consortium with J. Ray McDermott (JRM), provided program management, engineering, procurement, construction and installation of the 4,267‑ton topsides, for an offshore gas production platform for BG Trinidad & Tobago, Limited.

Located off the northwest coast of Trinidad in 530 feet of water, the Poinsettia platform is the largest facility ever built or installed in Trinidad & Tobago waters.

Fluor's configurations and methods for offshore LNG regasification and BTU control offer a method of providing a natural gas product, comprised of providing vaporized supercritical LNG, optionally from an offshore location to an onshore terminal; splitting the vaporized supercritical LNG into a first and second stream; processing the first stream to remove at least some non-methane components from the first stream to form a lean natural gas product, wherein the step of processing includes a first turbo-expansion of at least a portion of the first stream; compressing the lean natural gas product using at least in part energy from the first turbo-expansion; and combining the compressed lean natural gas product with the second stream to thereby form a sales gas with predetermined content of non-methane components.

Fluor's configurations and methods for offshore LNG regasification and heating value conditioning is a method of providing a natural gas product comprised of providing vaporized supercritical LNG at a temperature of −20° F. to 20° F. to an LNG processing unit; expanding the vaporized LNG in the LNG processing unit and using refrigeration content of the expanded vaporized LNG to provide cooling to a first recompressor feed and a reflux condenser to thereby form a heated vaporized LNG stream; splitting the heated vaporized LNG stream into a first and second portion; condensing the first portion to form a reflux stream for a demethanizer, wherein the reflux stream has a temperature sufficient for recovery of at least C2 components, and turbo-expanding the second portion and feeding the expanded second portion to the demethanizer; and producing a demethanizer overhead product.

Configurations and methods for subsea hydrocarbon production at high pressure wells are contemplated in which production control is achieved by implementing two choke valves in series between the wellhead and the riser. The first production choke reduces pressure from well pressure to a reduced pressure, while the second production choke further reduces the pressure from the reduced pressure to riser pressure. The first production choke is preferably coupled to the production tree, and the second production choke is coupled to production tree, a subsea pipeline-end device (e.g., PLET or PLEM), a well jumper, or a flowline jumper.

Fluor provided a high-quality front-end engineering and design (FEED) package for Woodside, consisting of two bridge-connected gas processing platforms as part of the overall Browse FLNG JPP Development. With more than 50,000 tons of topsides, this represents a world-class offshore facility.

Starfish is a ground-breaking project that would allow BG and Fluor to introduce the most effective combination of fabrication and construction activities to perform work onshore, offshore, during shutdowns and off shutdowns.

The intent of the project was to provide facilities for exploitation of the Starfish and North West Dolphin Gas Fields reservoirs, as well as the provision of additional compression facilities for the existing and planned gas developments. BG envisaged several possible development options, which were subsequently screened down to three. The result is a subsea tieback from wells to the existing Dolphin “A” Platform, where modifications would be made to incorporate future production for the subsea development.

Fluor is providing engineering, procurement, and construction support for Phase 3 of the Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Power project. The project is being undertaken on behalf of the Philippine Government by the Service Contract 38 consortium composed of Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. (Operator), Chevron Malampaya LLC and Philippine National Oil Company—Exploration Corporation. This landmark project is among the most significant in the Philippines. Approximately 30 percent of the power for the main island of Luzon is generated by power plants using Malampaya gas.

Fluor and Offshore Oil Engineering Co., Ltd. (COOEC) have agreed to form a new fabrication joint venture, COOEC Fluor Heavy Industries Co., Ltd to provide very large modules for offshore clients in the Asia Pacific region and globally. The Zhuhai Fabrication Yard is a world-class, state-of-the-art facility and is located near Hong Kong in the Zhuhai Gaolan Port Economic Zone. The facility can accommodate fabrication modules weighing more than 50,000 tons.

The COOEC-Fluor fabrication yard completed fabrication of the topsides, living quarters and drilling modules for the CNOOC Huizhou offshore oil platform project. The modules sailed away on schedule in July 2018, destined for the Huizhou 32-5 oilfield development in the Pearl River Mouth basin of the South China Sea.

COOEC-Fluor is assembling two offshore modules for CNOOC’s Dongfang (DF) 13-2 Gas Fields Development project. The modules include a new central platform and one wellhead platform, with a total tonnage of 19,100 metric tons. The two platforms will make up a new offshore oil and gas production platform located in the western South China Sea, 132 kilometers west of Dongfang City in China’s Hainan province.