Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. opened the world’s largest floating production storage and offloading facility in Angola Tuesday, allowing offshore processing of hydrocarbons in the Pazflor oil field.

The company said its project, dubbed Pazflor Floating Production Storage & Offloading Unit, is the first of its kind to process two very different grades of liquefied gas petroleum.

“We’re proud to announce that Daewoo Shipbuilding has completed its third project in the Total E&P-operated oil field here, we maintain close partnership with the Total,” Nam Sang-tae, CEO of Daewoo Shipbuilding, said at the completion ceremony.

The project is 40 percent owned by Total E&P, a French petroleum company. The Korean shipbuilder in 2007 won a $2.32 billion deal from Total to build the facility which aimed to become a four-field cluster on the northwest sector of the African country’s offshore block 17.

The offshore vessel, 325 meters long and 61 meters wide, will be able to process 220,000 barrels of oil a day, and store up to 1.9 million barrels of crude oil until they are piped to gas stations.

The FPSO was built in the builder’s plant in Geoje Island since 2007, and was completed this January. It took four months of installation process after taking it to Angola and began processing oil in the offshore field for pilot production. The facility is designed to receive, process and store liquefied gas petroleum which is processed to be served to different parts of the world.

The ceremony was attended by Total chief Christophe de Margerie and Manuel Vicente, the chairman of the board and director at the Angolan state oil company, Sonangol.

Daewoo Shipbuilding is expanding its overseas business to diversify its revenue sources. It said on Tuesday that it has agreed to build Israel’s Tamar natural gas field with Noble Energy Inc, Delek Group Ltd and Isramco Inc, as a pre-deal before it can win a vessel order.

By Cynthia J. Kim (cynthiak@heraldcorp.com)