A floating production storage and offloading ( FPSO ) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production and processing of hydrocarbons and for the storage of oil. A FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline. FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export the oil. FPSOs can be a conversion of an oil tanker ( as with this model ) or can be a vessel built specially for the application.