China Merchants Group is to supply Dutch-based SBM Offshore with an offshore petroleum floating production storage and offloading vessel costing over $1 billion -- following a signing ceremony held in Haimen, Nantong, in eastern Jiangsu province, on April 5.

The signing marks CMG’s first foray into constructing an offshore floating production, storage and offloading vessel, according to local media reports.

The project mainly concerns developing an unloading vessel with an oil storage capacity of 2.2 million barrels of crude oil. With a total length of 333 meters, a width of 60 meters, a depth of 33 meters and a displacement of 460,000 tons, the vessel is a new-type offshore oil floating storage device with the largest tonnage and maximum crude storage capacity in the world.

The total cost of the ship is $1.2 billion. It is currently in the design stage. Construction work on the ship will start in August at CMG’s Haimen Base. It is expected to be delivered by the end of January 2021.

Li Jianhong, president of CMG, addresses the signing ceremony on April 5 for the construction of an offshore floating oil production storage and offloading vessel, to be supplied to Dutch group SBM Offshore. [Photo/Wechat account of Ganzhi Haimen]