The Australian government’s Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISER) has confirmed the arrival of the FPSO Northern Endeavour at Modern American Recycling Services (MARS) in Frederikshavn, Denmark. In preparation for its journey to MARS, the lead contractor, Petrofac Facilities Management, oversaw works on the FPSO at Seatrium’s yards in Singapore.

These works entailed cleaning the hull and removing antifouling paint, repainting the hull to prevent any further degradation, removing protrusions from the bottom of the hull that would have prevented the FPSO from loading onto the heavy transport vessel, getting rid of the flare and weather towers to allow safe passage under bridges through the Suez Canal, and installing fasteners to safely secure the FPSO to the heavy transport vessel.

The vessel left Singapore in February 2026 and made the nearly eight-week voyage on COSCO Shipping Heavy Transport’s Hua Rui Long semi-submersible heavy transport vessel. Loading the FPSO onto the Hua Rui Long required a coordinated effort, which involved eight tugs and two line-handling vessels. The process took 6.5 hours.

The Hua Rui Long is described as one of only a few vessels worldwide able to transport something as big as the 274-meter-long FPSO. This is believed to be the third-largest semi-submersible heavy transport vessel currently in operation.

“We will now work closely with MARS to safely and efficiently recycle the FPSO. The focus of the Northern Endeavour decommissioning program has now shifted to phase 2 to permanently plug and abandon the oil wells. The tender process for a supplier to deliver this work closed in December and evaluations are underway,” according to Australia’s Department of Industry, Science and Resources.

The FPSO was in production mode from 1999 to 2019 in the Timor Sea, approximately 550 kilometers northwest of Darwin. The unit produced oil from the Laminaria-Corallina fields located in the petroleum production licence area AC/L5.

The black gold produced, stored, and offloaded at the FPSO was classified as light crude oil. During the decommissioning process, Phase 1, completed in April 2025, saw the FPSO severed from its subsea lifelines.

While Phase 2 will permanently seal the wells, Phase 3 encapsulates stripping the seabed of infrastructure and remediating the field, which is overseen by Australia’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy, and Resources.

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