Brazil's Campos basin production ramping up

Brazil's deepwater Campos basin remains a hotspot of drilling-production activity. Brazilian state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA has started up what it claims is the world's largest floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel off Brazil. The converted Vidal Negreiros tanker recently began operating as the Petrobras 31 (P-31) production system in Albacora giant oil field in Campos basin off Rio de Janeiro state. It has capacity for processing 100,000 b/d of crude oil

Sept. 21, 1998

3 min read

Brazil's deepwater Campos basin remains a hotspot of drilling-production activity.

Brazilian state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA has started up what it claims is the world's largest floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel off Brazil.

The converted Vidal Negreiros tanker recently began operating as the Petrobras 31 (P-31) production system in Albacora giant oil field in Campos basin off Rio de Janeiro state. It has capacity for processing 100,000 b/d of crude oil and 2.9 million cu m/day of natural gas produced from the nearby P-25 platform.

With the new FPSO, crude oil output in Albacora field is expected to reach 200,000 b/d by yearend. This will increase Campos basin output to 1 million b/d. The P-31 FPSO, installed 107 km offshore in 330 m of water, concludes the implementation of the production/offtake system in Albacora field. The P-25 platform has operated since September 1996.

The conversion of the ship into an FPSO came under a contract let in October 1995 through Braspetro Oil Services, the international subsidiary of Petrobras, and undertaken by a Brazilian consortium of Verolme-Ishibras-IVI, Sade-Vigesa, and IESA-Internacional de Engenharia.

The basic engineering project for revamping the ship was undertaken by Petrobras's research and development center (Cenpes), and engineering and construction took 27 months. Financing for the unit was provided by Japan's Nissho Iwai Corp.

Barracuda plan

Meantime, in coming months, Cenpes will present to Petrobras's engineering department the basic project for expanding production capacity in giant Barracuda oil field, also in the Campos basin off Brazil.

Production from Barracuda is expected to increase to 200,000 b/d from 50,000 b/d of crude oil.

After the project is approved by Petrobras, international tenders will be called for building and installing platforms and pipelines for the next phase of Barracuda development.

Production growth

Within the next 2-3 years, Petrobras plans to increase the country's oil production to 1.5 million b/d from the current 1 million b/d, largely on the strength on $12 billion of new investments in the deepwater Campos basin, says Luiz Carlos Quintella, associate superintendent of Petrobras engineering services department.

The Campos basin has 18 floating production systems (FPSs) receiving production from 258 subsea wells via 1,690 km of flexible flowlines, in addition to 14 fixed platforms receiving oil from 185 wells.

"Within the next 2-3 years, another 13 FPSs will be installed to produce from another 215 subsea wells," added Ricardo Juiniti, a senior petroleum engineer at Petrobras.

The equipment being designed for the Campos basin includes large-scale FPSOs, deepwater pipelines, new or converted semisubmersible drilling rigs, and concepts employed for the first time in Brazil, such as a tension-leg wellhead platform.