Brazil’s Petrobras Orders 10 Floating Platforms for New Oil Findings

Brazil's state-controlled oil and gas multinational Petrobras announced Monday, September 15, that its board of executives has approved the placing of an order for 10 new floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels. The ships will be used for extracting oil from the pre-salt layer at the Santos Basin.

According to the company, the first two platforms will be rented from third party companies, and will be destined to pilot projects for development in the region. Production capacity in each platform will be 100,000 barrels of oil and 5 million cubic meters of natural gas per day, according to Petrobras. They will be installed in 2013 and 2014.

The other platforms will be owned by Petrobras itself, will have production capacity of 120,000 barrels of oil and 5 million cubic meters of natural gas a day, and will be installed in 2015 and 2016.

According to the company, the units will be manufactured in series, starting with construction of the hulls at the dry dock at Estaleiro Rio Grande shipyard, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. They are going to operate in ultra deep waters.

Anba