Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - santos

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…

The system will connect Luanda in Angola, with Fortaleza in Ceará in northern Brazil and the u/w cable with have a capacity to transmit 40 terabits per second, or 40 trillion bits per second, which will greatly speed up trans-Atlantic media, O&G and general business connections. Eventually an extension of the cable will also reach Santos, on the coast of São Paulo and Miami. The initial project will have an investment of US$160 million, with another US$100 million destined to extra connections. This is the essence of the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS), which cable operator Angola Cables plans to install by 2015 or the beginning of 2016 in the region. According to company president Antonio Nunes, this will be the first u/w cable in the southern hemisphere linking Brazil to Africa.

The Carcará oilfield off the Brazilian coast is named for a bird of prey that is liberally known as the Brazilian Eagle, its scientic name is: Polyborus Plancus. Carcará located in Block BM-S-8 is believed to hold one of the thickest reservoirs ever discovered in Brazil's Santos Basin pre-salt cluster, with a reservoir thickness of 471 meters. The play is being developed by a consortium composed of Petrobras (66%), Galp Energy (14%), and Brazilian players QGEP and Barra Energia with (10%) each. Tested flow rates and reservoir conditions at the Carcará discovery are superior to the famous Lula field. The Lula field, which is currently producing about 100,000 bopd, is estimated to hold recoverable reserves of between 5 billion and 8 billion boe.

Remora is a Norwegian company, focused on providing solutions for offshore O&G loading. The company was established 2002 and has its head office in Stavanger, Norway and an office in Houston. Remora does business using a ship-owner structure by building, owning, leasing and operating HiLoad units. The range of HiLoad applications spans from offshore loading of crude oil, turret mooring of FSOs and FPSOs, as well as a mobile propulsion or DP system for seagoing vessels such as barges and floating rigs. The HiLoad concept is an innovative offloading solution which utilizes a ballasting system combined with a large square area of friction rubber which enables the HiLoad units to replace the water pressure on the tanker hull with no mechanical connection…

Back in 2009 I asked a good friend of my late father, who happened to be a long time Petrobras geologist, if he really knew the full potential of the pre-salt, after a while he looked up and said no not really, I know there are big fields out there, probably up to 10 billion boe in some reservoirs, possibly much more... Well, Petrobras kept on drilling and when Libra was found northeast of the Lula field (5 to 8 billion barrels boe), in 2010, the expectations ran high. Maybe 3.7 billion boe, maybe 15 billion boe. Probably 7.9, those are the numbers the ANP had in 2010. By May 2011 the ANP was downgrading it to 5 billion barrels boe.

The recente Discovery of a shallow water pre-salt reservoir by Brazilian private operator OGX has definitely raised a few eye brows. This novelty is a first in Brazil as up to now all other pre-salt reservoirs have been found in ultradeep waters off the Brazilian coast and usually very far from the coast. This new discovery which is located in BM-S-57 Block, in the Santos Basin and is less than half the distance from the mainland as other pre-salt finds in the Santos Basin, exactly 102 km from the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The wellhead is only 155 meters deep and the well was drilled down to 6,135 meters, which is the normal depth where pre-salt reservoirs are expected to be found.

The Laje Viva Institute was born from the indignation of a group of divers towards illegal fishing that, unfortunately, is a reality in the Laje de Santos Marine State Park. Divers spotted fishing vessels at the park and became indignant and irate with this practice, leading them to take action. From this point on, a few divers decided to meet and start to take action having a clear objective: "Protect Laje de Santos from fishing and hunting". On July 1st, 1993, these divers founded the Laje Viva Institute, a non-profit organization with the objective of implementing actions to guarantee the preservation and protection of the Laje de Santos Marine State Park (PEMLS).

Starfish Oil & Gas is not exactly a new player, since the company was founded in 1999. As the first private national O&G operator in Brazil and classified as a B class operator by ANP (National Petroleum Agency), Starfish has participation in a variety of onshore and offshore blocks in Brazil and in Angola. The company is structured as a closed capital corporation with capital stock of R$ 82.365 million (US$ 46,533 million, at the current exchange rate). The company´s stock is divided in 502.62 thousand common shares, distributed among 80 shareholders in Brazil and abroad. The first opportunities in the O&G market were identified by the company in the group of licenses granted by the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) to Petrobras in the so-called Round Zero, in August of 1998.

As work class ROVs used in the O&G industry and S&R missions reach new peaks in demand, small inspection class ROVs, better known as mini or micro ROVS are also becoming accessible to the general public. These light weight ROVs come in various shapes and sizes, although most models are limited to shallow water depths, there are exceptions and the probability is high that in the near future these MiniROVs will be capable of reaching deeper waters. Based in southern Ontario, Canada, Deep Trekker Inc. is specialized in the design and manufacture affordable subsea exploration tools, targeting the growing world consumer market for U/W exploration tools.

With the sharp increase in ship and shipyard construction, port construction and port safety awareness, all prompted by the mayor pre-salt and post salt oil discoveries off Brazil, many new local service companies, specialized in subsea services have been launched. Some of them are actually developing, Work Class ROV´s in Brazil using foreign or even locally developed technology. There has also been a marked demand increase for smaller ROV´s to be used in various fields including video inspection, side-scan sonar mapping, marine environmental research and training. It is likely that demand for small AUV´s will be increasing steadily as they can be very useful for environmental research…

The group that will be awarded the construction contract for this novel offshore LNG production unit will be known by October 31 Petrobras is keen to begin construction of the unit as it considers offshore natural gas liquefaction vital to guarantee a efficient output for the Santos Basin pre-salt gas. Many of the Santos Basin pre-salt fields are located over 300km from the coast, which convinced Petrobras to seek other options in order to deliver the gas to the market. Normally gas is transferred from wells to the coast through underwater pipelines but with such distances involved and with many of thereservoirs located in deep water…

Barra Energia do Brasil Petróleo e Gás Ltda or Barra Energia was established in 2010 as an independent O&G exploration and production company. Its headquarters is in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, close to all the main O&G Basins in Brazil and where all other players working the Brazilian offshore are based. The company was launched by executives, engineers and geologists that with long career histories in the O&G business, most hailing from super-majors like Petrobras and also from Repsol. The company advertises its main competitive edge as being its technical and commercial expertise and local knowledge. Barra Energia is counting on this expertise to guide them in their E&P efforts which will primarily focus on the three major offshore O&G areas in Brazil…

Paulo Mendonça, CEO of OGX stated that the first quarter of 2011 was very important for the Brazilian operator. OGX has been intensifying the campaign to appraise its discoveries in the Campos basin, where 16 wells have been spud since the beginning of the year, of which 10 are appraisal wells for the accumulations Waikiki, Pipeline and Illimani (Campos Basin) and Fazenda São José (Parnaíba Basin), with the intent of converting 3C contingent resources into 2C and 1C, and thereafter into reserves. -Delivering the vital and time sensitive declaration of commerciality to ANP (National O&G regulator), related to the discoveries in Campos, Santos and Parnaíba Basins.

Even as Petrobras allegedly slows its exploration efforts, new discoveries are still being uncorked in the Santos Basin. While the national player announced the start up of the EWT in the Guará area in late December, yesterday a new deepwater pre-salt light oil accumulation is discovered in an adjacent area at the same BM-S-9 exploratory block. The Guara  EWT is producing through well SPS-55, and  is expected to last for five months with a daily production is estimated at 14,000 barrels of oil per day. The Guará area is located in block BM-S-9 and around 300 kilometers off the coast of São Paulo state. The recoverable O&G volumes in Guará are estimated at between 1.1 and 2 billion boe with a around 30º API.

After a nearly perfect drilling campaign on various fronts in 2010, OGX start 2011 with new discoveries in the Campos Basin. Although there was much skepticism at the start of OGX´s creation in 2007, after last year´s performance, the new Brazilian operator, which was created by Brazilian businessman and investor Eike Batista adding to the portfolio of his EBX Group can now easily be considered as a good investment, especially for those who bought in early. Eike´s strategy to hire and partner with Petrobras´s extraordinary geologist and executive Paulo Mendonça was vital not only to gain market value as to bring in deep knowledge of where do drill and how to plan the E&P campaign. It´s important to not that Petrobras´s exploratory success rate more than doubled after Mr.

Using its Norwegian branch to launch a drillship operator is one of the options that Petrobras is evaluating in order to administer the 28 drillships the company plans to order.This option would entail creating a holding company as a subsidiary to Petrobras Netherlands B.V. (PNBV) to administer the operation of the 28 drillers to be ordered in the coming years in order to fulfill the drilling needs of the company´s aggressive exploratory campaign in looking for major reservoirs along the Santos Basin pre-salt. The main reason for using a PNBV subsidiary would be to speed up the company´s creation so as not to affect the planned exploratory schedule and also to decrease the company´s direct investment.

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.

China Petrochemical (Sinopec) and the Chinese national oil company (CNOOC) are holding separate negotiations with OGX Petroleo e Gás in order to acquire 20% of an OGX deepwater play at the Santos Basin. In general we can see a marked increase in Chinese involvement and investments in Brazil.These negotiations are the most recent effort of Chinese oil companies in Latin America. Normally Chinese oil investments are driven to Asia, the Middle East and Africa, regions that historically concentrate the majority of Chinese imports in energy sources and raw material. As recently as May of this year, Sinochem Group, China’s biggest chemicals trader, agreed yesterday to pay $3 billion to Statoil ASA for 40 percent of the Brazilian offshore Peregrino field.

Corus Tubes manufactured the thickest UOE 18” ever made especially for deepwater pipes at the Tupi field, in the Santos Basin.Corus Tubes has successfully manufactured 118km of 457mm x 31.75mm Grade X65 sour linepipe for the Petrobras Tupi project. This linepipe is designed to operate in Brazil’s Santos Basin at a depth of 2200m, and is thickest 18” UOE pipe manufactured to date. The design criteria allowed for fatigue and corrosion concerns as well as depth/collapse issues, and this led to the demanding and previously untried thickness to diameter ratio (t/D) of 0.0695. Some innovative steps were taken by Corus Tubes to control pipe shape, a critical element for subsequent laying of the pipe and collapse performance.

Since last year OGX Petróleo e Gás has been having excellent results in its exploratory campaign in the Campos Basin.OGX Petróleo e Gás, which is the Brazilian O&G company responsible for the largest private sector exploratory campaign in Brazil, recently announced that it had identified two oil-bearing intervals, one in the Aptian section of well 1-OGX-10-RJS and another in the Eocene section of well 1-OGX-13-RJS, which are located in the BM-C-42 and BM-C-41 blocks, respectively, in the shallow waters of the southern part of the Campos Basin, where they have been drilling the majority of their exploratory wells, with a very high percentage of success. OGX holds a 100% working interest in both blocks.