In 1859, in calm farm located in northwest Pennsylvania, America, Edwin Drake first succeeded in drilling and produced crude oil was usually used in household lighting or street lamp. In late 19th century, car industry developed and soon oil became fuel of car which made increase of use of oil as a fuel of car. In designing plane, gasoline engine was inevitable and vessels which used coal before quickly turned around to use oil.
After the Second World War, development of welding, metallurgy and piping technology made possible to install distant pipeline which led to natural gas industry boom. In the same time, development of petrochemistry industry urged up increase of new plastic production.
Recently, due to worldwide rapid rise of oil price, it became over 70 dollars per barrel. Economical efficiency of developing deep seafloor resource of distant sea raised which led oil major to rapid increase relative development industry through last 10 years. Finally, now developing in Deep sea (at a depth of over 3,000 meter) is able which was only developed in land field, onshore field.
Nowadays, increase of oil price due to explosive consumption of energy urged up rapid rise of offshore plant, intense competition of prior occupation among developed marine country.
From 20 years ago, Korea turned to offshore plant production such as fixed platform, FPSO which are drill ship and production plant and now Korea has the 3 biggest shipyards and is most competitive nation in offshore plant industry.
In the early days of construction acceptance of shipbuilding leading country, Korean shipyard usually constructed lower part structure like jacket of offshore production platform and in FPSO's case, hullside equipment installation and constructing and a trial run was only able in the USA, Europe and Singapore, but now it is done in the world's best shipbuilding nation as system of EPCIC(Engineering, procurement, construction, installation, commissioning).
The final step, Commissioning means after completing a ship, installation of each system's equipments, cable for providing pipe and power source and Instrument cable's control system, check whether it is accurately installed and connected and adding real fluid or electricity to make system work in fixed setting, giving life to hardware.
Korean shipyard which is the best in the world can conducts perfectly from design, outfit works like equipment installation, piping and cable connection to system commissioning and final sea-trial and be contracted on the high value added turnkey base with ship owner in the field of commercial ship.
But in the case of offshore plant some years ago basic design has been done by America or European designer and only hull construction, outfit work such as installation of equipment, piping and cable have been done without value added by our ship yard and then move to another country for commissioning.
Recently from detail/production design although basic design from special offshore design company, material procurement, construction of hull structure, installation outfit, offshore transportation and onshore/offshore commissioning can be done in the Korean shipyard. The ability of skill is not much difference between advanced shipyard and undeveloped one in the case of hull structure and outfit work after fixing the specification and basic design but should be differentiated from other shipyard in the commissioning which needs experience much as high technology skill for maximizing benefits by advancing the first oil date.
Commissioning is divided into onshore and offshore commissioning and onshore commissioning is also divided into hull-side as marine utility system and topside as purpose system and if these commissioning progresses same time the longer commissioning between hull-side and topside is critical path.
Sail Away date from shipyard departure to offshore spot can be advanced by shrinkage of onshore commissioning period. For the goal prior to commissioning outfit installation and mechanical completion should be proceeded without delay and deviation time of starting commissioning between hull-side and topside should be reduced as short as possible for the shortening the critical path commissioning.
Moreover sometimes shipyard wants early sail away and deliver the plant to reduce onshore period and to escape interference from other project therefore uncompleted onshore commissioning scope is carried over to offshore where is difficult to supply material, human dispatch and interference of local rule and regulations and very slower commissioning progress than onshore beyond comparison and therefore first oil date of final goal is over.
Therefore in order to keep the first oil offshore commissioning scopes exclude HUC should be minimized and additionally commissioning department must work hard with high technology skill too.
This study analyzes the best solution of commissioning progress to ultimately advance a point of time of first oil and Hand over which leads to maximization of operating profit through shortening the onshore time, advancing Sail Away which is departure time to offshore and shortening offshore commissioning term surprisingly which can be done by shortening term and high accomplishment of Korean shipbuilding yard's differentiated commissioning during building process for shortening building period of FPSO, which is representative offshore plant that Korea is most competent in construction world-widely.