A huge oil tanker, three football fields long and as tall as a 24-story building, was launched on Friday in Shanghai.

 

The ship, which can load or off-load 190,000 barrels of crude oil a day, is called a floating production storage off-loading (FPSO) vessel.

 

 

It was designed and built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. and is the largest and most expensive of its kind in China, the company said.

 

The 300,000-ton dead weight vessel costs US$240 million, close to the cost of an Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial airliner.

 

The vessel is 323 meters long and 63 meters wide, and measures 71 meters from its keel to the top of its smoke stack. It can store 2 million barrels of crude oil.

 

Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. built the vessel for Conoco Pillips China Inc.

 

The FPSO will be put into use in the second-phase project of the Penglai 19-3 Oilfield in China's Bohai Bay, which is jointly funded and run by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Conoco Pillips China Inc.

 

 

 

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 9, 2006)