Petrobras Pressuring Shipyards to meet Deadlines

Petrobras, the Brazilian national O&G operator, is putting pressure on local shipyards to meet deadlines for rig modules and drillship and FPSO hull construction in order for the company to be able to reach 2020 with a daily production 4,2 million barrels boe. Graça Foster president of Petrobras has been personally visiting shipyards such as the Rio Grande shipyard in south Brazil in order to make sure that all is being done to meet the deadlines set by the company. Equipment suppliers for shipyards are also under pressure by the national operator to deliver equipment and services on time. These suppliers are strung all over Brazil and in some cases are based in other countries, forcing Petrobras to set up teams to visit suppliers of various levels in order to certify that deadlines will be met. The national operator is worried that late deliveries by equipment suppliers will hold up the whole rig and drillship and FPSO construction effort and they are demanding the both suppliers and shipyards adhere to tight schedules in order for the exploration effort and subsequent production not be delayed. Other areas that are worrying the national operator are related to logistics and infrastructure for the O&G industry. With the ongoing construction of new ports, new roads need to be urgently build and new refineries also. There is already a serious problem caused by the delay in building the new petrochemical complex (Comperj) in the city of Itaguai in northeast Rio de Janeiro, this delay if not resolved forthwith may also eventually cause a delay in processing and distributing the pre-salt oil. As it is now the pre-salt production in Brazil is expected to reach 250 thousand barrels per day by the end of the year. At this point the refineries in operation are still capable of meeting the demand, but with a major increase in pre-salt production expected by the end of next year, new refineries, special made for processing the lighter pre-salt oil will need to become operational of there will be a serious risk of having a downstream bottleneck.