Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) is a floating vessel that acts as a mobile offshore production and storage facility, where oil is processed and stored until it can be transferred to a tanker for transporting and additional refining. A FPSO system is used extensively by oil companies for the purpose of storing oil from the oil rigs in the middle of the ocean and in the high seas that is one of the best devised systems to have developed in the oil exploration industry in the marine areas.
Reference Definition by Wikipedia: A Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production and processing of hydrocarbons, and for the storage of oil. A FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them, and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline. FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install, and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export oil. FPSOs can be a conversion of an oil tanker or can be a vessel built specially for the application. A vessel used only to store oil (without processing it) is referred to as a Floating Storage and Offloading vessel (FSO).
Related Definitions in the Project: The Plant and Process Unit; Project
