FMC Technologies to Build Research Center in Rio de Janeiro

New Wave Media

The FMC research center will be located at the technology center inside the UFRJ campus, which already houses other important international research centers and CENPES research center, owned by Petrobras.

FMC will be the fourth major international O&G service provider to establish itself at the UFRJ technology park, joining Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Halliburton (still in negotiations).

Expectation are high that with this great influx of researchers and investments in the UFRJ Technological Park, it will soon become the biggest O&G research center in the world, it is already acknowledged as being at the forefront of deepwater technological research.

The arrival of FMC is also very important as it specializes in product development, whereas the other international research centers already there mainly specialize in services. The birth of the UFRJ technology center started with CENPES in the 60´s, back then it was mainly interested in petroleum refining technologies, as the Brazilian O&G production at the time was not much more than negligible. The innovation was the fact that the CENPES laboratories were located inside a university campus, bringing the industry close to a knowledge generating institution.

FMC already has two industrial manufacturing units in Rio de Janeiro and a service center/logistics base in Macaé. The new research center will require an investment of around $40 million and employ around 300 researchers. Of these 300 researchers, around 100 will be new hires and the rest transferred from the product development teams from the FMC factories.

It is safe to say that one of the main attributes of the FMC research center will be to develop technologies for the challenges imposed by the pre-salt exploration. One of the challenges is also to devise equipment to safely increase the oil recovery factor, today at around 30% of most reservoirs potential. FMC is already working on subsea processing and it is certain this research will be expanded at the new center.

“This contract provides FMC an expanded presence in Brazil and the ability to play a significant role in the development of technologies for Brazil’s deepwater and pre-salt environments,” said John Gremp, FMC’s President and Chief Operating Officer. “The location of the Technology Center, inside the University campus, will create a collaborative environment and enable access to the very best of Brazil’s academia.”

The Brazil Technology Center will encompasses more than 220,000 square feet and supports three main disciplines including engineering, research and development; product qualification laboratories; and assembly, test and system integration testing.

The assembly and test space will accommodate large systems such as manifolds, controls and subsea processing equipment and enables safe dock side transport.

The facility is expected to open in the first half of 2011.

 

Claudio Paschoa

Illustration courtesy of FMC Technologies