Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has begun producing Well Urugua 6 to the Cidade de Santos floating production, storage, and offloading vessel, moored 160 km off Brazil in the Santos basin. The company also has connected wells Urugua-8 and Urugua-10 to the FPSO and expected production to reach 25,000 b/d in mid-July.
At full capacity, Petrobras expects the field to produce 35,000 b/d after connecting a fourth well to the FPSO by yearend. The FPSO is in 1,300 m of water and will handle production from both Urugua and Tambau fields. The FPSO is designed to handle 10 million cu m/day of gas, and 35,000 b/d of oil and condensate, as well as to store up to 740,000 bbl of oil.
Petrobras notes that Urugua field contains 33° gravity light oil and nonassociated gas. Its development plan for Urugua foresees the completion of four horizontal oil wells and five gas producers that connect directly to the FPSO.
Its plan for Tambau field includes three nonassociated gas horizontal wells connected to a subsea production manifold that will connect to FPSO Cidade de Santos.
Shuttle tankers will offload the stored oil, while an 18-in., 174-km pipeline will carry the gas to the PMXL-1 platform in Mexilhao field. From PMXL-1, the gas will go to the Monteiro Lobato gas treatment unit at Caraguatatuba, Sao Paulo, where it will enter a natural gas transportation network.
Petrobras says the work at PMXL-1 and Caraguatatuba is in the final phase and should be completed in this year's second half. It expects that it will have all Urugua and Tambau gas wells connected by late 2012, at which time FPSO Cidade de Santos will reach full gas production capacity, depending on market demand.
The company also expects that the infrastructure built for the project will facilitate the development of other fields in the Urugua area such as Pirapitanga and Tambuata.
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