Section 1 General

101. Application

1. The requirements in the Guidance are to be applied to the surveys, hull construction, equipment and machinery of floating production units. Floating production units(hereinafter referred to as "units" in the Guidance) as used herein mean units or vessels, not intended for the transport of cargo, which are positioned at a specific site of the installation permanently or for long periods and fitted with systems for the processing, storage and offloading of produced crude oil and petro- leum gases.

2. Attention is to be paid to plied to the International Conventions and National Regulations of the coastal state in which the unit is located during operation, and statutory requirements of the International Conventions and the National Authority may be stricter than requirements of this Guidance.

102. Classification of units

Units to which this guidance apply are classified as followings;

1. Purpose of units

(1) FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading)

FPSO is a unit with systems for the processing, storage and offloading of produced crude oil and petroleum gases.

(2) FPO (Floating Production and Offloading)

FPO is a unit with systems for the processing and offloading of produced crude oil and petro- leum gases.

(3) FSO (Floating Production and Storage)

FSO is a unit with systems for the storage and offloading of produced crude oil and petroleum

gases.

2. Type of units

(1) Ship type

Ship type is the unit in the shape of an ordinary tanker or cargo ship having displacement hull.

(2) Column-stabilized type

Column-stabilized type is a unit consisting of deck with top-side installations, surface piercing columns, submerged lower hulls, bracings, etc., which are semi-submerged to a predetermined draft during operation.

(3) Tension Leg Platform (TLP)

TLP is a unit which fully buoyant and is restrained below its natural flotation line by mooring elements which are attached in tension to gravity anchors or piles at the sea floor.

(4) Spar

Spar is a unit which is deep draft, vertical floating structures, usually of cylindrical shape, sup- porting a topside deck and moored to the seafloor. The hull can be divided into upper hull, mid-section and lower hull.

(5) There may be other types of units, which are not specified in (1) to (4) above, such as cylin- drical type.

103. Equivalence and novel features

1. The Society may consider the acceptance of alternatives to the Guidance, provided that they are deemed to be equivalent to the Guidance to the satisfaction to the Society.

2. The Society may consider the classification of the construction and equipment based on or applying novel design principles or features, to which the Rules are not directly applicable, on the basis of experiments, calculations or other supporting information provided to the Society.

Guidance for Floating Production Units 2015 1

Ch 1 General Ch 1

3. The risk evaluation may be applicable for justification of equivalence or novel features.