Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - fpso

As a world leader in construction and remote operations in deep waters, Petrobras has been developing new technologies and testing them with their partners in Brazil’s deepwater pre-salt fields for over a decade. Petrobras has historically opted for an incremental strategy to develop its technological capabilities to explore the Brazil’s offshore oil resources. As deepwater discoveries began to enter the production phase, Petrobras opted for using and FPSOs and wet x-mas trees. These discoveries of supergiant oil fields in the Brazilian pre-salt have offered Petrobras an opportunity for reviewing its technological path and it is becoming clear that the national operator has been increasingly inclined to move as much of the oil production systems to the seafloor as possible…

Petrobras’s P-58 FPSO started operations at Parque das Baleias, off the state of Espírito Santo, on the north sector of the Campos Basin through well 7-BFR-7-ESS, another pre-salt producer, which is showing an excellent productivity. P-58 is part of the North project of Parque das Baleias, which encompasses production from Baleia Franca, Cachalote, Jubarte, Baleia Azul and Baleia Anã plays. P-58 is moored approximately 85 km off Espírito Santo, at a water depth of 1,400 meters. In the upcoming months, 15 production other wells, being 8 pre-salt and 7 post-salt, as well as 9 injection wells will be interconnected to it through 250 km of flexible pipelines and two subsea manifolds.

Geopolitical location, an abundance of fish and huge O&G reservoirs make the South China Sea (SCS) particularly attractive to the countries that all lay claim to parts of it, such as China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia. While the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) estimates the SCS holds around 125 billion barrels of oil and 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in uncorked reserves, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates the SCS contains only approximately 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in proven and probable reserves, although the EIA admits this figure could increase pending geological surveys of peripheral locations.

As the time for the first pre-salt bidding round approaches, solid data begins to appear related to production forecasts and assets needed for the field’s development. Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) has confirmed that the first pre-salt bidding round will take place in October 2013 in Rio de Janeiro and the rules concerning it have already drawn criticism from potential operators. ANP maintains that these rules will not be changed and has come forth with information concerning the field’s development. According to thr ANP, Libra is expected to produce first oil in 2018, that is, 5 years after the winning consortium signs the E&P contract for Libra. This contract will be signed by November 2013.

Liquid hydrocarbon fuels can be produced from associated natural gas via a well-known catalytic chemical reaction called Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis. The FT synthesis is a collection of chemical reactions that converts a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons. It was first developed by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch at the "Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Kohleforschung" in Mülhei an der Ruhr (Germany) in the 1920s. During World War II, FT synthesis provided the needed liquid hydrocarbon fuels for the German war effort. Later, facing isolation during the apartheid era, South Africa turned to FT synthesis from coal gasification to supply significant quantities of its hydrocarbon fuel needs.

As gas flaring becomes more unacceptable from political and environmental viewpoints, oilfields with no viable associated gas solution may be required to curtail production or in the extreme case, cease production entirely. There is evidence globally that this is starting to occur and proposals for new oilfield projects in remote or deepwater locations must increasingly demonstrate how the associated gas will be processed without continuous flaring. Gas re-injection sometimes offers a solution but this is expensive for deep wells and not desirable for all reservoir structures. Gas-to-liquids (GTL) processes enable monetization of remote natural gas or other gaseous hydrocarbons by converting them into sulfur-free synthetic crude oil that can be easily transported by tanker.

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…

Flexible risers are being extensively used worldwide for deepwater O&G extraction, offering many advantages over rigid risers. However concerns still exist about the overall safety of the system, especially concerning failures leading to hydrocarbon leaks in the ocean environment.The flexible risers being used in deepwater are designed to work for a period of around 20 to 30 years, which is the expected lifetime of an O&G field. A flexible riser failure could happen due to a number of reasons, such as hostile environmental hazards and material fatigue and if the failure is catastrophic, it could lead to high economic and environmental consequences. Flexible risers comprise multiple layers, and the main layers of concerns are the tensile armor layers which exist to withstand tension loads.

The launching of the Rio Grande Naval Complex completes another key project for pre-salt production, as the complex will house the hybrid pre-salt FPSO production line, which already has an order book for 8 units. Petrobras has launched today the Rio Grande Naval Complex, in the city of Rio Grande, southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The complex is considered so vital to the Brazilian pre-salt production that the outgoing president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was in attendance. The complex consists of a 430,000 m² infrastructure designed for the construction and repair of offshore units for the O&G industry. The complex will be capable of building drillers and production rigs.

The MODEC owned and operated FPSO Cidade de Angra dos Reis MV22 has been moored in 2,150 meters (7,053 ft) at its final operational location over the giant Tupi area in the Santos Basin. O&G production operations will begin in a few weeks after on-location tests.MODEC converted the VLCC "M/V Sunrise IV" into an FPSO at the COSCO (Dalian) Shipyard Co., Ltd. (“COSCO Dalian”) in China. The FPSO is classified by ABS as 29.7 meters in depth, 58.00 meters in breadth, and 318.46 meters in length. The conversion from VLCC to FPSO involved steel fabrication, module installation and integration, the installation of cables, pipe and equipment.

With a number of new O&G discoveries popping up nearly continuously in Brazil, both in shallow and deepwater, there has been a significant increase in ROV demand by operators, not only the major players but by all players involved on the Brazilian oil boom. In general the delivery of a complete ROV system may take around nine months, this includes the delivery of key equipment such as heavy duty winches, power and control umbilicals, flotation foam blocks, control modules, tooling kits and backup equipment. Here in Brazil, ROV manufacturers, which are basically all foreign companies with local offices, have been increasing their local stocks of ROV systems.

With the work on its new shipyard underway, OSX, the shipbuilding and ship rental company belonging to the EBX Group, is planning on entering tenders in order to try and get a piece of the contracts for 21 drillers for Petrobras. The OSX shipyard is being built within the Açu Port area (the Açu Port is also in construction and is also owned by the same EBX Group). Sete Brasil is administering the construction of the 21 drillers, which will then be leased to Petrobras. Petrobras itself will oversee the tender process. Sete Brasil is one of the local companies participating in the tender and they have already been awarded the contract for construction of the seven first drillers, which are being built at the Atlantico Sul shipyard in the Brazilian northeast state of Pernambuco.

Relying on the expected growth of the O&G industry in Brazil and the influx of new rigs and FPSOs in the Brazilian offshore market, British manufacturer, Rolls Royse is set to make a $60 million investment in a new plant to build energy modules for offshore rigs. The plant will be located in Santa Cruz, in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. The manufacturing plant is slated to begin operations by the third quarter of 2012. Rolls Royse is also seriously considering another $60 million investment in Brazil in the next 2 or 3 years, in the O&G sector and in other sectors such as airplane turbines. The location in Santa Cruz was chosen because of its proximity to the company´s client base in Rio de Janeiro and also to its proximity to the Campos Basin…

Eni owns 43% of Saipem, which is organised in three Business Units: Offshore, Onshore and Drilling, with various activities in remote areas and deepwater. Saipem is also specialized in providing engineering, procurement, project management and construction services. In 2010 Saipem was awarded by Petrobras the EPIC contract for the P55-SCR project, encompassing the engineering, procurement, transportation and offshore installation of flowlines and risers serving the semi P-55 to be installed in the Roncador field, in the Campos Basin, off the coast of the Rio de Janeiro State, in Brazil. For this contract Saipem will be working with companies specialized in subsea construction, such as Advanced Subsea and others, while utilizing various subsea support equipment, such as AUVs and ROVs.

Like I recently stated, bad thing happen real fast, in this case no one even knows exactly why things happened but no real harm was done since the Dynamic Produce FPSO, belonging to Brazilian contractor Petroserv, was down for maintenance since last Sunday, with the well being plugged and the pipes purged of O&G. Therefore, when the a pipe section connecting the FPSO to the well ruptured (it´s still not clear at what depth the rupture occurred or even how many ruptures there were), there was nothing in them to spill out, avoiding what would have been the first serious pre-salt production accident resulting in a oil spill. It is also…

Petrobras has started the tendering process for machinery for the 28 pre-salt FPSOs to be built in Brazil. Hopes are that such a large order will attract the limited number of marine turbine manufacturers to set shop in Brazil.The tendering process is expected to involve up to 128 units, including marine turbines, generators and compressors. Since there a but a handful of heavy marine turbine manufacturers in the world and with the local content policy demanding around 70% local content from shipboard equipment manufacturers, Petrobras hopes to attract some of the larger global marine turbine, generator and compressor suppliers to install manufacturing plants in Brazil.

With the intention of making a more efficient pre-salt FPSO production in Brazil, Petrobras had selected the Rio Grande Shipyard works and dry-dock to be their FPSO production center. There was still a need for a tender process to select which local company would be responsible for the construction process of the first 8 FPSOs to be built from a total of 40 FPSOs originally calculated to be needed for the pre-salt development. These units are part of the new strategy for the construction of production units, designed to simplify projects and standardize equipment. Producing identical hulls in series will accelerate the construction phase, and allow economies of scale and cost optimization.

GE O&G has been awarded a contract valued at $160 million to supply gas turbine and compressor equipment by Petrobras Neatherlands BV (PNBV).The equipment will be deployed on two FPSOs (P-58 and P-62) for E&P in oil fields located in Brazilian offshore plays. This important $160 million contract is related to power generation and compressor equipment packages to be deployed on two Petrobras FPSO units slated to work the north side of the Parque das Baleias (Whale Park) O&G fields and at the Roncador field at the Campos Basin. These combined will support production of 360,000 barrels of oil per day. The FPSOs are scheduled to go online in 2013.

Among the many challenges facing E&P in the Brazilian deepwater pre-salt plays, is that of anchoring the flowlines, platforms, FPSOs and even buoys to the seabed which can be over 2000 meters deep. Petrobras has developed a simple and efficient method of doing this through the Torpedo Pile.In the case of the deepwater pre-salt plays in Brazil, specially at the Santos Basin, the distance from land to some of the proven plays like Tupi and Iara, which are around 300km from shore and pose complex logistics problems even on surface structures. Challenges, such as how to anchor a deepwater rig or FPSO to the seabed 2,200 meters down must be resolved. It is a long distance for anchors to travel, normally four or more anchors are used and these anchors need to be aligned.

With headquarters in the UK, Wellstream has invested heavily in the Brazilian O&G market since 2007 and currently has an ongoing contract with Petrobras for around 700km of flexible pipes. They are the acknowledged leaders in flexible riser manufacture in Brazil.Wellstream is a world leader in design and manufacture of flexible pipeline products, systems and solutions for fluid transportation in the O&G industry. The business, founded in 1983 is headquartered in Newcastle, UK, with manufacturing facilities in the UK, Brazil and USA. The company has over 1,000 employees worldwide and also has sales and project offices in Canada and Australia. Flexible pipe products are used in many offshore field developments, but particularly where floating production vessels are involved.