PARAMARIBO, SURINAME – SBM Offshore and Technip Energies are building Suriname’s first floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit for the upcoming GrandMorgu field. The vessel, scheduled to arrive in-country by mid-2028, will be critical to the project’s success, according to Pierre Gaté, SBM’s Country Entry Manager for Suriname.
The FPSO, which will be permanently moored 180 km offshore, is being custom-built, not converted from a tanker. “It’s a new build. It’s what we call an MPF, a multipurpose floater,” Gaté said.
The unit will separate well fluids, oil, gas, water and mud, and handle storage and offloading. “We keep the oil, because that’s what we want,” he said. “We inject the gas and re-inject the water.”
The GranMorgu FPSO will have a production capacity of 220,000 barrels of oil per day, equivalent to filling 14 Olympic-sized swimming pools daily. It will also store two million barrels of oil on board. SBM’s design includes five gas turbine generators, producing 150 megawatts of electricity. “That allows us to have an all-electric drive FPSO, Compressors, pumps, everything will be electrically powered,” Gaté said.
The vessel will support a rotating crew of 180 people at a time, with helicopter transport twice daily to facilitate crew changes. “That’s 180 jobs times two,” Gaté emphasized, outlining the employment potential.
Environmentally, the vessel includes a closed flare system to minimize emissions. “We aim to reduce flaring as much as possible,” he said.
The FPSO’s hull comes from SBM’s Fast4Ward® program, which uses standardized designs to speed up construction and reduce cost. “It’s the same hull you’ll find in three of our FPSOs in Guyana and two in Brazil,” Gaté said.
Construction is happening across three shipyards in China. The hull is being built at CMHI, integration will occur at COSCO, and another yard is involved in fabrication. The vessel is expected to depart for Suriname in 2027, with first oil targeted in 2028.
Safety is a top priority. “We combine SBM’s ‘Target Excellence’ with TotalEnergies’ safety culture,” he said. “We recently celebrated one million work hours with no injuries, and we aim to maintain that over the next 20 to 25 million hours.”
“We might be the last piece of the puzzle,” Gaté concluded, “but we are more than just a hull and some plants. We are building the visible heart of Suriname’s offshore oil production.”
