floating production storage and offloading
- A floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore industry for the processing and storage of oil and gas.
- A FPSO vessel is designed to receive oil or gas produced from nearby platforms or subsea template, process it, and store it until oil or gas can be offloaded onto a tanker or transported through a pipeline.
- FPSOs can be a conversion of an oil tanker or can be a vessel built specially for the application.
- A vessel used to store oil only is referred to as a floating storage unit (FSU).
- FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install, and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export oil and gas.