ABS has issued a Basic Design Review certification to Hanwha Ocean for a standardized floating production, storage and offloading vessel design developed for the South American and West African deepwater market, alongside related sustainability reviews covering the same design.
The BDR certification covers Hanwha Ocean’s front-end engineering design for the FPSO, reflecting ABS’s review of core design documentation and technical standards across key systems, including the hull, topsides and mooring arrangement.
ABS also issued an Approval in Principle for the FPSO, incorporating design features to satisfy SUSTAIN-2 notation requirements. In addition, ABS issued a Statement of Fact for Hanwha Ocean’s Project Sustainability Execution Plan, which extends the sustainability framework into systematic project execution by linking sustainability requirements with engineering deliverables, key performance indicators, responsibilities and verification evidence.
The design has been engineered as a repeatable, standardised floating platform intended to enhance the efficiency and scalability of traditional FPSO development. Hanwha Ocean intends to apply the design to large-scale projects in South America and West Africa, where deepwater field development activity continues to grow.
The certification follows a separate pre-FEED for deepwater oil and gas fields in West Africa, for which ABS issued an earlier Approval in Principle, together representing Hanwha Ocean’s strategy to build a portfolio of standardised FPSO designs across the world’s primary deepwater production markets.
Matt Tremblay, ABS Senior Vice President for Global Offshore Markets, highlighted ABS’s technical knowledge and regional presence in South America and West Africa as key assets in supporting clients through every stage of deepwater development.
Philippe Levy, President of Hanwha Ocean EPU, described the ABS certification as a strong endorsement of the company’s FPSO engineering capabilities, framing the standardised platform as a means of strengthening global competitiveness while delivering optimised solutions tailored to the requirements of key offshore regions.
