The platform, called P-76, is located nearly 180km off Rio de Janeiro coast, in a water depth of 2,030m. It will be capable of processing up to 150,000 barrels of oil and compress up to six million cubic meters of natural gas from the Buzios field.
The P-76 floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel uses an interconnection to ten producing wells and seven injector wells for its production. The vessel is the second platform of Petrobras to begin production in 2019 and is one of the four planned for this year.
The produced oil from the Buzios field through the P-76 FPSO is offloaded by relief vessels, while gas production will be drained using the pre-salt pipeline routes.
Petrobras said that the completion of the hull conversion, the integration of the modules and the final commissioning of the P-76 FPSO were executed in Paraná.
In 2013, the Brazilian national oil company awarded a contract for topside construction and integration, commissioning, and start-up assistance of the FPSO to a consortium made up of Technip (currently known as TechnipFMC) and Techint.
Technip was responsible for the vessel’s project management, engineering and procurement, while Techint handled the fabrication, integration, and commissioning of the 24,000-ton module at its yard in southern Brazil.
Under a subcontract awarded by the Technip/Techint consortium, Mammoet executed the integration part of the P-76 FPSO.
In December 2018, P-76 left Techint’s offshore unit in Pontal do Paraná after the completion of four years of shipyard work to arrive at Santos Bay.
P-76 has now joined the P-75 and P-74 platforms at the Buzios field, which was discovered in 2010, and brought into production in April 2018 through the P-74 FPSO. The P-75 platform began production in November 2018.
Petrobras has plans to deploy another platform called P-77 at the Buzios field, which is anticipated to be brought into production this year.
Earlier this month, Petrobras alongside its partners Royal Dutch Shell and Galp started production from the Lula North deep-water project, which is also located in the Santos Basin like the Buzios field. The production from the Lula North deep-water project is being carried out by the P-67 FPSO.
