Construction on Asia's largest cylindrical floating oil-gas production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility began in east China's coastal city of Qingdao on Friday.

The FPSO unit, independently designed by China, will be deployed in Kaiping South oilfield located in the eastern part of the South China Sea.

FPSO units are offshore facilities that integrate marine oil and gas extraction, processing, storage, and offloading functions. The new cylindrical unit being built is designed to have a full load displacement exceeding 170,000 tons, a maximum oil storage capacity of 122,000 cubic meters, and a deck outer diameter of 110 meters. Both its the hull weight and deck outer diameter rank first globally among similar facilities.

"The new facility adopts a 30-year drydock-free ultra-high standard design, and with it we have acquired the full set of technical capabilities on deepwater ultra-large cylindrical floating FPSO unit, from design to construction and installation. The new unit marks the first large-scale application of more than 10 sets of domestically built key equipment, and adds 15 intelligent functional modules. Upon completion, it will become Asia's largest cylindrical 'offshore oil and gas factory' in terms of size and weight, with the strongest oil and gas processing capacity and highest level of intelligence," said Shu Wei, general manager of the China National Offshore Oil Corp's (CNOOC) Kaiping oil field project.

Cylindrical FPSOs offer higher space utilization and oil storage efficiency compared to traditional equipment, with distinct advantages for oil and gas production in deepwater areas with harsh sea conditions.

The Kaiping South Oilfield, approximately 300 kilometers off the coast of south China's Shenzhen, has an average water depth exceeding 500 meters and proven reserves of more than 100 million tons, the largest oilfield independently discovered by China in deepwater areas.