Wartsila Corporation reported Monday that the technical design and installation of a new fixed pitch propeller (FPP) undertaken by the company for the floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) Ngujima-Yin has been successfully finalized. The FPSO is operated by Woodside Energy, an independent Australian oil and gas company. The vessel operates in the Vincent offshore oil field in north-western Australia. 

The most important benefit of the new propeller is that it will increase the speed of the vessel. The project was executed efficiently and on a fast-track by Wartsila.

The 1,089 foot (332 meter) Ngujima-Yin FPSO was previously converted from a double hulled tanker for operation as an FPSO in the Vincent field. Typically, such conversions, which include structural alterations and the installation of new production equipment, also alter the specific parameters and operational characteristics of a vessel. For this reason, the propeller design needs to be optimized specifically for each vessel. 

The design work carried out by Wartsila involved a pre-study of the existing propeller characteristics, 3D CAD modelling of the ship's hull, a computational fluid dynamics analysis of the hull, and the design and manufacture of a 393 inch (10,000 millimeter) diameter FPP weighing approximately 66 tons. The new solution was successfully installed in a Singapore shipyard. 

"This is a prime example of Wartsila working closely with its customer to produce a solution that meets the operational needs of a specialized vessel. It was a challenging project that involved a technical design and a short delivery time, especially considering the size and weight of the propeller," says John Sydney, managing director, Wartsila Australia.