April 6, 2014
Sarita, Reborn
The shuttle tanker, Sarita, was built in 1986 at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Heavy Machinery in Korea. After 23 years of shuttle tanker operations, Teekay won Occidental Petroleum’s contract for deployment of a floating, storage and offloading unit (FSO) on the Al Rayyan Field offshore Qatar. The contact included the conversion of the Sarita to an FSO. Subsequently, the vessel was renamed to the Falcon Spirit.
From 1986 to 2006, the Sarita operated in the North Sea. For the next three years, she operated in South Africa. From 2009, where she was rebuilt into an FSO unit, up until now, she has been deployed offshore Qatar at the Al Rayyan Field. Teekay was awarded the contract with Occidental Petroleum in April 2009 and delivered the Falcon Spirit just eight months later.
From her days operating as a shuttle tanker, the vessel uses standard bow loading equipment. Through this, she is moored to a single buoy mooring a standard (SBM), also known as single-point mooring. Conventional tankers moor to the stern of the FSO for cargo transfers. Oil transfers from the Falcon Spirit occur once every two months.