FPSO Noble Seillean was the first ever dynamically positioned floating oil production, storage and offloading vessel.
Etymology
The name Seillean means "honeybee" in Gaelic.
History
The vessel was designated as a single-well oil production ship (SWOPS) when constructed for BP by Harland & Wolff in 1986–1988. The vessel was designed to operate in the conditions encountered at a generic North Sea field well. Seillan would arrive onfield, connect to the wellhead, fill her tanks, disconnect, sail to port, discharge the oil, repeating this process every 20 days.
The process plant, flare and the riser including subsea connection were designed and procured by Matthew Hall Engineering, which also provided construction assistance and commissioning of the oil production facilities. The original specification for the vessel[1] was as follows:
Seillean was initial deployed in April 1990 to the Cyrus oilfield on Block 16/28 in the UK sector of the North Sea.