OSV Market in Brazil – Bravante Group

The Bravante Group has been active in Brazil for around 50 years. Bravante Offshore, one of the companies that make up the group is a 100% Brazilian company specialized in leasing and operating OSVs for the O&G industry. Bravante is also Brazil’s market leader in transportation and supply of bunker fuel, supported by an extensive fleet of specialized bunker barges.

Bravante has its own 20,000 square meter shipyard in São Gonçalo, across the bridge from the city of Rio, it’s name is São Miguel Shipyard and it is where Bravante provides construction and repair facilities for its fleet and clients. The yard was recently remodeled to meet new market demands for the construction, repair and modernization of offshore vessels such as PSVs, OSRVs and AHTSs. The São Miguel Shipyard has two dry docks and facilities capable of delivering up to six vessels the size of a PSV 4500 per year.

The Group is also active in environmental emergency prevention and response through Hidroclean, another subsidiary. Through its 2011 acquisition of robotics company RRC Robotica, Bravante entered the subsea engineering sector, providing support services for subsea operations using ROVs.

Although Bravante has its own shipyard, they have reached out and ordered five PSVs from the Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Inc. of Florida, through Brazilian shipowner Boldini S.A. The first of this batch of PSVs, the BRAVANTE V has already been delivered and all will be powered by AC diesel-electric twin Z-drive propellers and will be fitted with four 16-cylinder turbo-charged diesel generator engines supplied by Cummins. The engines are compliant with IMO Tier II emissions regulations and are rated at 1825 kW at 1,800 rpm. The integrated diesel electric system for the vessels has been supplied by GE Energy, which includes thruster drives, motors, control systems, DP system, switchboards, motor control centres, automation, and navigation and communication electronics. The PSVs, which have been designed by STX Canada Marine, will each have below-deck capacities of 1,600m³ of cargo fuel, 237m³ of ships service fuel, 1,944m³ of drill water, 800m³ of additional drill/brine water, 800m³ of additional fuel/liquid mud, 244m³ of dry-bulk mud and 100.6m³ of potable water.

This is undoubtedly good news for U.S. shipbuilders as more orders can be expected due to the strong demand for OSVs in Brazil, most of which are leased to national operator Petrobras. Basically all the long term contracts for OSVs currently operating in Brazil are through Petrobras and the demand will only grow. The new and huge Libra present field alone is expected to demand between 60 and 80 OSVs of various types along with at least a dozen FPSOs for production.