Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - shipyard

The Ponta Negra Terminal (TPN) to be built at the south side of Jaconé Beach at Ponta Negra Point is to be one of the biggest ports in the country. DTA Engineering, responsible for the project, unofficially called the Pre-salt port and with an investment forecast of $5,4 billion in an area of 557,2 thousand square meters, is expected to link oil & gas pipelines from the Pre-salt plays to the Petrochemical complex of the state of Rio de Janeiro (Comperj), which is located in the nearby city of Itaborai. The project includes a port, a ship and rig maintenance shipyard and a refinery. Authorities consider the location ideal due to the fact that the point has a natural depth of 30 meters.

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.

Brasil Supply was launched in 2002 to provide logistics services to offshore operations, technical services of oil, water and gas treatment fluids, and environmental services for the oil and gas industry. Their headquarters is located in the State of Espirito Santo, based in the cities of Anchieta and Cariacica, and they also have offices in the State of Rio de Janeiro, in cities of Rio das Ostras, Rio de Janeiro, and Duque de Caxias. Further south, they also operate in the city of Itajaí, in the State of Santa Catarina, and are developing a significant operation in the Northeast of the country, in association with other major service providers.

Sete (Seven) Brasil is the newest Petrobras offspring. The the new private company was launched to administer the 28 drillships that Petrobras will order. The tender process for the first seven orders was won by EAS shipyard, located in the Suape Complex, close to the city of Recife, in the Northeast State of Pernambuco. The total price for these seven drillers adds up to $4.637 billion, which means a $13 million discount from the original proposal. The final price for each driller is pegged at around $662 million and the drillers are scheduled to start operations by 2015. During construction the forecast is for 32 thousand direct and indirect job openings. In its operational phase, the forecast is for 10 thousand direct and indirect jobs for a period of 10 years.

As Petrobras announces that it will go through with five more deepwater pre-salt drilling projects this year, totaling 16 pre-salt wells drilled in 2010, a number which will probably increase in 2011 and more pre-salt, deepwater and shallow water plays keep being uncovered, new shipyard and new port projects are getting underway to make up the some of the infrastructure deficit in Brazil.OSX has finally defined that its shipyard will be build next to the Açu Port and Industrial Complex in the northeast coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The final decision was decision was based on the competitive advantages of UCN Açu, as attested by the results of comprehensive engineering…

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.

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 use of automated equipments is on a steady rise in Brazilian shipyards, which are looking to be more competitive and meet order demands. A modernized production line is a necessity for the national shipyards in order to be internationally competitive and to honor contract schedules. Basically all the shipyards are investing in automation to a larger or lesser extent. At this point the Brazilian shipyard which has most invested in automated systems is the EAS shipyard (Estaleiro Atlantico Sul) at the Suape complex in Ceará, northeast Brazil. It is also the biggest shipyard in operation in the country and has a partnership with Korean shipbuilding giant Samsung Heavy Industries.