Petrobras Magazine

Two Petrobras platforms, the FPSO P-53 and the semi-submersible unit P-51, constructed in Brazil and scheduled to go into operation in late 2008 and early 2009, respectively, have already had a significant impact on the country prior to the start of production and are of great promise for the coming years. They have contributed to the revitalization of the national shipbuilding industry and to the creation of domestic employment and income, given that more than 70% of the goods and services were acquired from Brazilian suppliers. In addition, the platforms will reinforce the country’s self sufficiency in oil, as they will contribute an extra daily production of 360,000 barrels of oil and gas.

P-53

Resulting from the conversion of the Portuguese vessel Setebello, the FPSO-53, constructed in Brazil, constitutes an important element of the Brazilian government’s Plano de Aceleração do Crescimento - PAC (Growth Acceleration Plan) and has provided an important boost to the Brazilian shipbuilding industry. After all, as the Petrobras director of Exploration and Production, Guilherme Estrella, emphasizes, the project has generated around 4,500 thousand direct and 15,000 indirect jobs.

In the energy field, the contribution will also be considerable. “The FPSO will have a production capacity of 180,000 barrels of 20º API oil per day, will compress six million m³ of gas and will generate 92 MW of electric energy. Regarding water injection capacity, the unit’s capacity will total 245,000 barrels daily,” says José Antonio Figueiredo, the Petrobras South-Southeast Exploration and Production division executive manager.

The FPSO will be installed in the Marlim Leste field in the Campos Basin, 120 km from the coast, and will be anchored at a depth of 1,080 meters, becoming the first production unit in that field. There, it will be interconnected to 21 wells, of which 13 will be oil and gas producers and eight, water injectors.

Equipped with a 26 cm diameter turret system, that is, a receiving tower for flexible production and injecting lines, oil ducts, gas ducts, and anchorage lines, it will also have the capacity to receive 75 flexible lines.

Oil production will be transported to land by means of an autonomous repumping platform, the PRA-1. Part of the daily gas production will be used for the unit’s internal consumption, as a fuel for the generation of electric energy. The rest will be transferred to platform P-26, to be incorporated into the Campos Basin gas network.

P-51

Destined to operate in the Marlim Sul field in the Campos Basin (RJ), 150 km from the coast in a stretch of water 1,255 meters deep, the P-51 is the first semi-submersible platform constructed entirely in Brazil. It is also another result of the policy implemented by the Brazilian government and Petrobras to revitalize the national shipbuilding industry.

In this regard, the unit was a key component in the Plan for Accelerated Growth currently in force in Brazil. “The work on this project alone created 4,000 direct and 12,000 indirect jobs, which helped strengthen the growth of Brazilian industry and the consolidation of the national content policy in Brazil,” explains Guilherme Estrella, the Petrobras director of Exploration and Production.

Included in the Campos Basin Drainage and Treatment Director Plan (PDET ) and in the Plan to Anticipate Natural Gas Production l (Plangas), the P-5 will also contribute to increasing the supply of gas in the Brazilian market.

The platform will have a production capacity of 180,000 barrels of 22º API oil per day, a gas compression capacity of six million cubic meters, a water injection capacity of 282 bpd, and a generation capacity of 100 MW of electric energy daily, a total sufficient to supply a city of 300,000 inhabitants. In addition, it will be interconnected with 19 wells, of which 10 will be producers of oil and gas and 9, water injectors, and will be responsible for about 8% of the total volume of oil produced in Brazil, once the production peak is reached, foreseen for 2010.

Considering the contribution which the P-53 and P-51 platforms have made to the revitalization of the Brazilian shipbuilding industry and the important role reserved for both in the strengthening of Brazil’s self-sufficiency in oil, Petrobras and Brazil have won important victories, as well as greater facility in developing risk ventures in the future.