Petrobras platform leaves South Korea bound for Búzios field
Petrobras is closer to adding more oil and gas production from presalt Santos basin operations offshore Brazil as platform P-79 left South Korea headed for Búzios field.
The platform will be towed to the location about 180 km off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro. It is expected to arrive in Februrary 2026.
The unit, the eighth of 12 planned for the field, is designed to produce 180,000 b/d of oil and 7.2 MMcmd of gas.
The P-79 project has 14 wells, 8 of which are producers and 6 alternating oil and gas injection technology (WAG) injectors. Once online, scheduled for August 2026, installed production capacity at the field is expected to increase by about 15.6% to about 1.3 million b/d when including the expected start of production from P-78 in December 2025.
Construction of the hull took place at Hanwha Ocean, in Geoje-Si, South Korea, where the integration and commissioning of the topside modules, built in China, Brazil, South Korea and Indonesia, was also carried out.
Búzios field production
Búzios field lies water depth up to 2,100 m. It has six floating, production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessels: P-74, P-75, P-76, P-77, Almirante Barroso, and Almirante Tamandaré.
In October, production at the field surpassed 1 million b/d of oil, becoming Petrobras’s largest producer.