Shell starts oil production off Brazil

Aug. 15, 2003
Royal Dutch/Shell Group reported production start-up from the Bijupirá and Salema fields, in the Campos basin, 120 km off Rio de Janeiro state. The project is a joint venture of Shell Brasil Ltda., operator with 80% interest, and state-owned oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) 20%.

Peter Howard Wertheim
OGJ correspondent

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 15--Royal Dutch/Shell Group reported production start-up from the Bijupirá and Salema fields, in the Campos basin, 120 km off Rio de Janeiro state. The project is a joint venture of Shell Brasil Ltda., operator with 80% interest, and state-owned oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) 20%.

"We are the first private company to produce oil in the Campos basin after the opening up of the sector to private investments in 1997," said Aldo Castelli, president of Shell Brasil.

Shell became operator of the fields following its purchase of Enterprise Oil Ltd. in May 2002. (OGJ Dec.16, 2002).

Bijupirá and Salema fields are about 295 km from the city of Rio de Janeiro. Discovered by Petrobras in 1990, the fields have reserves of 188 million bbl of oil and 62 bcf of gas, said Castelli.

"We are starting production earlier than established in the plan sanctioned by the National Petroleum Agency in 2001," said Michiel Kool, Shell Brasil's exploration and production vice-president.

Initial production will be 20,000 b/d of oil from one of eight production wells already completed in the fields. Production will increase gradually to reach an expected peak production rate of 80,000 b/d of relatively light, 28-31° gravity crude oil and 35 MMcfd of gas. Six water injection wells with a total capacity of 92,000 bw/d will provide reservoir pressure support.

Current production is via subsea wells tied back via three manifolds: two, located about 2.2 km from a floating production, storage, and offloading vessel, will commingle flow from up to 7 production wells in Bijupirá, and one manifold will commingle flow from up to 3 production wells in Salema field.

Modec International LLC provided the Fluminense FPSO—after having converted it from the Sahara ultralarge crude carrier (see photo OGJ, Sept. 9, 2002, p. 38)—and supplied the external turret mooring system, flowlines, risers, and subsea manifolds. Fluminense has a processing capacity of 81,000 b/d and a storage capacity of 1.2 million bbl.

Stored oil in the FPSO will be offloaded into shuttle tankers, and gas from the fields will be exported via an existing pipeline from the Bijupirá area to the Petrobras P15 installation.

Total project investment is about $650 million, Shell said.