A Canadian flagged Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel which arrived at shipyard, Harland & Wolff, Belfast is to undergo a £61m base contract to deliver a mid-life upgrade of the large ship, writes Jehan Ashmore

The contract for the 150,000 deadweight tonnes, MV Searose FPSO is with Cenovus Energy, an international integrated oil and natural gas company headquartered in Calgary, Canada, from where the 276m vessel sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to arrive on Saturday.

Work to upgrade the FPSO is to prepare the production vessel to operate in expanded duties at the company’s White Rose subwell oilfield off Newfoundland and Labrador as Upstream reported, but from 2026 is to operate at the West White Rose field.

Docking of the MV Searose FPSO took place the next day at H&W’s Main Building Dock, where the pair of iconic ‘Goliath’ type gantry cranes affectionately referred as ‘Samsun’ & ‘Goliath’ dominate over the facility at Queen's Island. 

In advance of the vessel's call, several work projects commenced at Belfast, that included inspections, procurement of steel, fabrication of customised blocks and other dry dock operations. Further fabrication involved one of the Group’s facilities, H&W (Arnish) on the Isle of Lewis & Harris in Scotland, so to ensure both marine engineering sites were prepared in readiness for the refurbishment and upgrading.

This is the second time Searose FPSO has been to H&W, as in 2012 the vessel was dry docked (in Belfast Dry-Dock as above) where the contract at the shipyard was then under different ownership, Harland & Wolff Heavy Industries Ltd. With this experience coupled with the shipyard's ability, to apply the latest technologies and innovations to upgrade the vessel, has helped Harland & Wolff to win the major contract for the Group which acquired the business from the previous owner in 2019.

On this occasion, the contract is expected to see 1,000 personnel on-site in Belfast where currently a cruise ship for a USA based owner as Afloat previously reported is undergoing maintenance and a major makeover prior to entering service from Florida in mid-June.