P-48 begins production in Campos basin

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Mar. 1 -- State-run Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) began production Feb. 28 from its P-48 platform in deepwater Caratinga field in the Campos basin off Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil.

The Caratinga P-48 floating production, storage, and offloading vessel (FPSO), is producing 21,700 b/d of 23° gravity oil from well CRT-21 in 1,000 m of water. Its production start closely follows initiation of production from platform P-43 in December 2004 from nearby Barracuda field (OGJ Online, Feb. 2, 2005).

The deepwater Barracuda and Caratinga complex, which covers 493 sq km in 600-1,350 m of water, is 160 km east of Macaé, northeast of Rio de Janeiro. The FPSOs each can produce as much as 150,000 b/d of oil and store 2 million bbl.

Petrobras plans to connect 32 production wells and 22 injection wells to the two platforms and expects peak production in July.