Visit to Samsung’s Koje shipyard (October 1998) The idea for a ‘Joint FPSO Research Forum’ was born out of the shared desire of many industry players for a means of communicating areas of technical challenge and participating in the development of targeted Joint Industry Studies. On 28 January 1998, the FPSO Integrity JIP Working Group Meeting decided to pursue this initiative and invited other companies to join the proposed open forum. A special hospitality party was organised for this purpose during OTC 1998 and hosted by ABS, Houston. Since then, the FPSO Research Forum has meet twice a year, in the midst of the so- called “JIP Week,” when the steering teams of a number of joint industy projects gather. During these open meetings, progress reports are given on several on-going FPSO JIPs such as ‘FPSO Integrity’ (MARIN), ‘Fatigue Capacity’ (DNV) and ‘LNG FPSO’ (Chevron). New proposals for JIPs are also identified and discussed. In addition, open discussion is fostered on technical issues facing the industry today. The forum is open to all in the industry (no press). The only requirement is participation must be both way – share experiences as well as take away learnings.

Our Mission: To identify the common technical issues facing those involved in designing, fabricating and/or operating FPSOs, and to foster JIPs to tackle them for the common good of the industry. Our Vision: THE FRF will be a clearinghouse for ideas, where:

  • Technical issues can be identified, commonality gauged, and JIPs spun-off where independently supported.
  • Proposed JIPs can be presented to the right people in all the organizations involved at one time.

Our Strategy:

  • Focus on structural/marine issues (have not branched into discussions on processing, for instance)
  • Meet regularly, move the venue around the world to share the burden of travel
  • Present on topical issues (e.g. corrosion, fatigue, roll, double bottom/single bottom, metocean and rogue waves, welding rules, etc), mix with information sharing and field trips to local areas of technical interest.
  • Invite organizations proposing JIPs to speak (e.g. ABS, MARIN, DnV, Noble Denton, etc.)
  • Include the right organizations – designers, owners, fabricators, regulatory agencies, operators, class societies.
  • Liaison with related technical organizations, such as TSCF, and OGP.