MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Petrobras prepares to extract heavy oil with 140.000 bpd FPSO unit

The P-63 floating production storage and offloading unit has a storage capacity of 1.4 million barrels

After months of delays, the P-63 floating production storage and offloading unit (FPSO) has made its temporary home in Brazil's Port of Rio Grande, Petrobras and the Quip consortium said on Thursday.

The 140,000-barrel per day unit made its way through the port’s channel and docked at the Quip consortium’s dock just after noon local time. BW Offshore, Quip, Petrobras and port officials all assisted with the logistics.

“This is the first project completely executed by a national company, from the initial stage to the beginning of exploration and production,” said Miguelangelo Thome, director-general at Quip.

The journey to Rio Grande was challenging, but the results were “extremely positive” in working with their timeline, he said. The company now has four months of “intense work” ahead to meet a challenging timeline, officials said.

Petrobras is working towards a July 2013 startup date for the platform, which will work in the Petrobras and Chevron-led Papa Terra heavy-oil project in Brazil's Campos Basin post-salt reservoirs. The BC-20 project is 110 km offshore and at a depth of 1.190 meters.

But the Brazilian state-controlled giant has struggled against cost and time overruns in the massive construction ramp-up of production systems for its offshore bounty.

BW Offshore said in November that the project cost had risen from 375 million dollars to 450m as partners saw the project run behind as much as 11 months. The development of the whole project is estimated to demand 5.2 billion dollars.

The P-63 unit whose hull has been converted into a FPSO at a shipyard of China's Cosco, will be integrated and commissioned by a consortium formed by Oslo-listed oil service contractor BW Offshore Ltd (OSL:BWO) and Brazilian platform builder Quip SA. Works are scheduled to be completed in the first half of this year.

When ready, the FPSO will be transferred to the Papa-Terra field, in the post-salt layer of the Campos Basin. P-63 has a processing capacity of 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil and a storage capacity of 1.4 million barrels. The vessel is also capable of compressing 1 million of cu m (35.3m cu ft) of gas per day. Its power generation capacity stands at 98 MW.

The vessel is 334 meters long, 57.3, width and 323.000 DWT and will be operating at a depth of 1.200 meters.