Shell has reportedly sold one of its North Sea floating, production, storage and offloading units for demolition.
Brokers report that the 99,900-dwt Curlew (built 1983) has been sold to undisclosed buyers for recycling.
The UK-flagged FPSO will be berthed in Dundee, Scotland, for three months this year, where it will be cleaned and decontaminated before it is towed to Turkey for recycling, according to reports from Upstream, TradeWinds' sister publication.
The unit was built at Odense Steel in Denmark and began its life as a tanker, the Maersk Dorset, before being converted to an FPSO in 1997. Shell bought the unit in 2013.
Removal of the FPSO is phase one of Shell's decommissioning programme for the Curlew fields off Scotland's east coast on the UK Continental Shelf, where the unit has been employed.
The programme has already been approved by the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, according to Shell's website.
Shell expects the Curlew fields to reach their economic limit in the first quarter this year.
The UK Oil & Gas Authority has granted the company's request to cease production, should the fields become uneconomical.
Big picture
Including the Curlew, three FPSO units have been sold for demolition this year so far, according to VesselsValue.
If other units follow during the next nine months, this would mean FPSO scrapping in 2019 outstrips the levels seen in 2018 and 2017.
Three FPSO units were sold for demolition last year and another three during 2017.
Currently, 22 of the world's 215 FPSOs are laid up and another five are undergoing repairs, according to Clarksons.
Of this global fleet, 45 were built before 1979, yet only five of these older vessels have been stacked, the data shows.
TradeWinds contacted Shell for confirmation of the Curlew's scrap sale but did not receive a response.
