Insights/Glossary & Methodology
Reference
FPSO Glossary and Methodology
Why this page exists. Most FPSO cost mistakes are vocabulary mistakes — a charter value read as a price, displacement read as topside weight, a financing figure read as contract value. The terms below are used the same way on every page of this site.
How the numbers on this site are built
- Public sources only. Every figure comes from company announcements, Petrobras releases, regulator records or specialised trade press, and every page lists its sources with links.
- Blank beats estimate. When a value, weight or date could not be confirmed, the cell is left blank. Combined figures (two units, one number) are never split.
- Match the contract model first. EPC prices, BOT global prices and charter values describe different economics and are analysed separately.
- State the spread. Benchmarks are reported with their observed spread (~9% on $/bpd, ~15% on $/ton) — a margin of error, not a point estimate.
- No live-bid information. Nothing from an open tender — pricing, rankings, bidder positioning or internal assessments — is published here.
Glossary
- FPSO
- Floating Production, Storage and Offloading unit: a ship-shaped facility that processes oil and gas from subsea wells, stores the oil and offloads it to shuttle tankers.
- FPU
- Floating Production Unit — same function without oil storage (e.g. semi-submersibles P-51, P-52, P-56).
- Topside
- The processing plant on deck — separation, compression, power generation, water injection — built as modules and lifted onto the hull.
- Hull
- The floating vessel itself. Can be a newbuild (e.g. SBM Fast4Ward) or a converted VLCC tanker.
- Module / moduleiro
- A pre-fabricated topside block. A moduleiro is a yard that fabricates or integrates modules.
- Integration
- Lifting and connecting modules on the hull, then commissioning the plant as one system.
- EPC / EPCC
- Engineering, Procurement, Construction (and Commissioning): lump-sum build contract; the buyer owns and operates the unit after delivery.
- BOT
- Build-Operate-Transfer: the contractor builds and operates the unit for a defined period, then transfers ownership to the buyer.
- Charter / lease
- The contractor owns and operates the FPSO for a long firm term (typically 20–25 years) and is paid a day rate; ownership is not transferred.
- Day rate
- The daily fee paid under a charter. A charter's headline value is usually day rate × firm term.
- Project financing
- Debt raised to fund construction of a chartered unit. It is not the contract's value and not the price of the FPSO.
- bpd
- Barrels of oil per day — the unit's nameplate oil processing capacity.
- MMscfd
- Million standard cubic feet per day — gas processing capacity.
- $/ton
- Contract value divided by topside weight. Only comparable when weight basis (topside, not displacement) and contract model match.
- $/bpd
- Contract value divided by oil capacity. More widely available than weight; still only comparable within one contract model.
- Displacement
- Weight of water displaced by the whole loaded vessel — hull, ballast and cargo included. Not comparable with topside weight.
- Local content (conteúdo local)
- Share of a contract's value that must be sourced, fabricated or performed in Brazil, set tender by tender, with penalties for shortfalls.
- ANP / CNPE
- Brazil's oil regulator (Agência Nacional do Petróleo) and the national energy policy council that sets local content policy.
- Pre-salt
- Ultra-deepwater carbonate reservoirs below a thick salt layer in the Santos and Campos basins — home of Búzios, Mero, Atapu and Sépia.
- eHouse
- Pre-fabricated electrical building housing switchgear, transformers and control systems.
- Spool
- Pre-fabricated piping assembly (pipe, fittings, flanges) delivered ready for installation in a module.
- OCTG
- Oil Country Tubular Goods — well casing and tubing.
- Spread / turret mooring
- Ways of anchoring an FPSO: spread mooring fixes its heading; a turret lets it weathervane around a single point.
Put the terms to work: start with the 18-FPSO benchmark or download the dataset (CSV).
Pedro Sotomayor, PMP® — Senior Cost Engineer on FPSO projects, 15+ years in offshore cost engineering and project controls (Jurong/Seatrium P-68/P-71, SBM Offshore FPSO Ilhabela). Writes from inside live Brazilian FPSO tenders, using public data only.