Eni's choice of a floating production, storage and offloading unit for the Amoca, Mizton and Tecoalli development off Mexico was seen as a surprise, especially given water depths of around only 30 metres.
The facility is being designed to be able to handle two different crudes, as well as allow offloading for the oil to international markets, which made the case for the development model.
Mexico's National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) worked with the company to explore a range of concepts, including tiebacks to shore.
CNH president commissioner Juan Carlos Zepeda Molina says the agency was ultimately persuaded by the argument that the FPSO production solution could be built faster and, by extension, first production achieved sooner.
The CNH also expressed pride for the local content commitments secured by the project.
That said, industry observers have indicated the timeline is still quite fast for an FPSO contract.
Also, working even with the existing local content target — which given the shallow water depth was designed with a fixed platform model in mind — was not without its challenges, given that many FPSO components must be sourced from abroad.