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Paulo Arthur / Petrobras Image Bank
P-43 in the Barracuda field

While the global economic crisis still distresses countries and markets worldwide, in Brazil, Petrobras, continuing with planned investments, is rescuing the shipbuilding industry by ordering new platforms and ships, thus generating new jobs, stimulating the economy, and boosting the development of the country. The scenario should improve due to discoveries in the pre-salt province. Brazilian and foreign private groups which operate in Brazil are reconsidering shelved projects to install new shipyards in the country.

The activities in the Brazilian shipbuilding industry stagnated in the 1990s. The recovery began in the year 2000, when Petrobras started the conversion of two oil tankers into FPSO* production units (P-43 and P-48), for the Barracuda and Caratinga fields in theCampos Basin, respectively. The conversion of P-47 from an FSO** into an PSO, to process and treat oil from platforms in the Marlim field, also in the Campos Basin, and of oil tanker Felipe Camarão into FPSO P-50, for the Albacora Leste field, continued stimulating the industry. The recovery became even stronger when the Brazilian government directed Petrobras to have platforms P-51, P-52, P-53, P-54, and PRA-1 built in Brazil.

This policy culminated in the establishment of the Programa de Mobilização da Indústria do Petróleo e Gás Natural–PROMINP (the Oil and Natural Gas Mobilization Program) by the Brazilian government in 2003. Through it, the participation of the Brazilian industries of goods and services was maximized on competitive and sustainable bases in projects related to oil and natural gas in Brazil and abroad. Today, the Brazilian shipbuilding industry is working “full steam ahead.”

“We are in a context of revitalization with longterm planning which will provide sustainability to the shipbuilding industry,” observes Antonio Carlos Alvarez Justi, Petrobras general manager for E&P and Maritime Transportation for the Engineering area.

Ailton Mendonça / Petrobras Image Bank
The construction of platforms will revitalize Rio Grande, in the South of Brazil

PROMEF
The revitalization of the shipbuilding industry is mobilizing Brazil from North to South. In the South, Rio Grande is already thinking ahead. Strategically located as the only maritime port in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, with two piers, a 350m-long and 130m-wide dry dock and a gantry crane able to lift loads of up to 600 tons in an area of 430m², the city will have its development strongly boosted. After all, platform P-55 will be built there and the project will generate new jobs and stimulate commerce and the real estate sector. The Rio Grande Maritime Complex is rented to Petrobras up to 2019. Nowadays, it is undergoing infrastructure work, which will be concluded by the end of 2009.

The Maritime Complex will also probably receive orders for eight FPSO-type platform hulls, which will be part of the first lot of Petrobras production units for the pre-salt province. Another three chartered units will probably be taken on in future Petrobras projects. The first unit is already being built overseas. The other two will have a minimum required national content.

In Ipojuca, in the state of Pernambuco, in the northeastern region of the country, the hull of platform P-55 and the first Suezmax-type oil tanker for the Petrobras subsidiary Transpetro’s Programa de Modernização e Expansão da Frota – PROMEF (Fleet Modernization and Expansion Program), are being built at the Estaleiro Atlântico Sul - EAS (South Atlantic Shipyard). The construction of the Suezmax ship alone, which is capable of transporting one million barrels of oil, is providing jobs for thousands of workers.

Geraldo Falcão / Petrobras Image Bank
Atlântico Sul shipyard

Another 14 of the 49 vessels planned by PROMEF will also be built in the shipyard, a 1.62 million m² area with a 400m-long and 73m-wide dock, a 700m pier, and two Goliath-type gantry cranes with up to 1,500 ton lifting capacity each.

With the building of all the vessels planned by PROMEF, an estimated 40,000 direct jobs will be created in Brazil. In the first phase of the program (PROMEF I), bids were made for the construction of 22 ships of four different types, and three shipyards have already been contracted to build 19 of them. In the second phase (PROMEF II), in progress, another 20 units will be built, also in three shipyards. A new phase is foreseen to bid the construction of another eight LPG ships.

The construction of all the ships in the PROMEF program will generate 40,000 direct Jobs

In São Roque, there will be the entire infrastructure to build shallow-water platforms

In São Roque, in the state of Bahia, also in the Northeast, the only offshore worksite owned by Petrobras has got a second wind due to a new R$ 30 million investment in modernization work and from the new projects to be executed there. Practically paralyzed in the 1990s and chartered when most of Petrobras’ offshore project orders migrated abroad, the worksite was reactivated in 2003. Since then, platforms Peroá-Cangoá, Manati, and PRA-1 have been built there. Now, as it gets ready to aggregate the whole industrial structure to build shallow-water units, the offshore drilling units P-59 and P-60 are under construction, as well as jackup platforms, capable of drilling up to 9,144m below sea level. Petrobras estimates that 70% of both projects will comprise Brazilian components.

Geraldo Falcão / Petrobras Image Bank
Petrobras offshore construction site in São Roque, Bahia

The construction of a block assembly workshop, the modernization of two workshops, the construction of a pipe fabrication shop, and the reinforcement of a pier are also planned for the worksite. After that, three drilling rigs of up to 14,000 tons can be built there.

The demand is growing. For instance, in the modified worksites, the remodeling of the semisubmersible platform P-14 and platform P-3, as well as the construction of new units for the Camorim and Dourado fields in Sergipe, are already foreseen. Petrobras guarantees new orders, and will favor Brazilian suppliers.

“The general idea is to make the Brazilian shipbuilding industry not only more productive in the following two years, but also more competitive in terms of price and quality, as in South Korea and Singapore. After reaching this goal, the aim will be to ensure that the sustainability of the Brazilian shipbuilding market becomes increasingly professional and, in the future, that the Brazilian shipbuilding industry can export goods and services to other countries,” says Antonio Carlos Alvarez Justi.

Patrícia Santos / Petrobras Image Bank
The construction of platform P-52 in a shipyard in Brazil

Professional Qualification
Profession qualification is a parallel process to any investment foreseen in infrastructure. Therefore, through PROMINP’s Plano de Qualificação Profissional (Professional Qualification Plan), launched in 2006 thanks to Petrobras and other companies, people who were recently illiterate are today provided with technical training and an occupation. Within the scope of the program, R$ 228 million will be invested by 2010 for the qualification of 78,000 individuals in 13 states. Also, as a recent study identified the need to qualify another 207,000 people by 2013, more individuals will be trained to work in the revitalized Brazilian shipbuilding industry.

Professional qualification is given in parallel to the revitalization of the shipbuilding industry

78,000 people will be trained to operate in the revitalized shipbuilding industry by 2010

There is still a lot of work ahead, but the industry is increasingly active every day. Petrobras is doing its share in this effort. It is contributing to the recovery of the Brazilian shipbuilding industry, is creating more jobs, and is thus reaffirming its commitment to sustainable development in Brazil, its largest market.

Ailton Mendonça / Petrobras Image Bank
People who did not know how to read or write until recently have a profession today