Brazilian oil and gas giant Petrobras has begun the contracting process for two floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) production units for the shared reservoirs of Atapu and Sépia deepwater oil fields .
The platforms P-84 (Atapu) and P-85 (Sépia) will each have a daily production capacity of 225 thousand barrels of oil and a processing capacity of 10 million cubic meters of gas.
Bids are expected to be received in July 2023 and production to start in 2028.
Following the second round of bidding for the surplus volumes of the onerous transfer, Petrobras, the operator, now holds a 65.7 per cent interest in the Atapu shared reservoir, Shell 16.7 per cent, TotalEnergies 15 per cent, Petrogal 1.7 per cent, and the Brazilian Government, represented by Pré-Sal Petróleo S.A. (PPSA), 0.9 per cent.
Petrobras is also the operator of the Sépia shared reservoir, holding 55.3 per cent, TotalEnergies 16.9 per cent, Petronas Petróleo Brasil and QatarEnergy 12.7 per cent each, and Petrogal 2.4 per cent. In both reservoirs PPSA acts as manager of the sharing contract.
According to Petrobras, the project allows a 30 per cent reduction in the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of oil equivalent produced due to All Electric configuration, optimizations in the processing plant, and incorporation of several technologies.
This includes zero routine venting (recovery of vented gases from the cargo tanks and processing plant), deep sea water harvesting, use of variable speed drives on pumps and compressors, cogeneration (Waste Heat Recovery Unit), zero routine flaring (recovery of gases from the flare – closed flare), and valves with requirements for low fugitive emissions and CO2 capture, use, and storage from the produced gas.
Atapu is a pre-salt oil field in the Santos Basin located in water depths of about 2,000 meters. Production from the field started in 2020 through the P-70 FPSO, which has the capacity to produce 150,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day.
Sépia is also located in the Santos Basin in water depths of about 2,000 meters, and the production, which started in 2021 , is targeting a plateau of 180,000 barrels per day with the first FPSO. The second one is expected to increase the overall oil production of the field to around 350,000 b/d.
Petrobras announced at the end of October that it had made an oil discovery in a well located in the co-participated area of Sépia.
The company spud the well 4-BRSA-1386D-RJS located in the northwestern part of the oil field, about three months after the signing of the contract for the Sépia transfer of rights (ToR) surplus consortium.