With the vessel destined for the Catcher field in the UK North Sea, operator Premier gave BW Offshore a letter of award to supply and operate the FPSO for at least seven years.

The final contract for the FPSO is expected this quarter, once environmental approval is in to officially sanction the project.

The FPSO will receive a newbuild hull from Japan and will be modified to reach processing capacity of 60,000 barrels of oil per day and storage of 650,000bbl.

First production from the field is targeting mid 2017.

The Catcher joint venture consists of Premier (50%), Cairn Energy (30%) and MOL (20%).

Last week Malaysia's Bumi Armada received a letter of intent from Eni to supply and operate a FPSO for Block 15/06 in offshore Angola, with first oil targeting the end of October 2016.

The LOI allows Bumi to start engineering and procurement work immediately with the contract estimated to be worth $2.9 billion.

Bumi CEO Hassan Basma said it was the second large FPSO contract won in six months, while the ship used would come from its first very large crude carrier conversion.

"This is the second time Eni has turned to Bumi Armada for an FPSO in west Africa and we will continue to collaborate with our tried and tested value chain, as we have done in the past, to successfully deliver this project for our repeat customer," he said.

The conversion of the VLCC Armada Ali will increase Bumi's FPSO fleet to eight, with delivery to the Angola field expected in 31 months.