Sandvik’s stainless steel umbilicals ordered for Mero field

Swedish engineering group Sandvik has won the first large-scale stainless steel umbilical tube order for Brazil’s offshore pre-salt Mero oilfield.

Sandvik said on Tuesday that the contract was significant because the offshore Brazilian oil and gas industry typically uses thermoplastic hose umbilicals.

The delivery will consist of over 500 kilometers of Sandvik’s super duplex Sandvik SAF 2507 stainless-steel umbilical tubes encapsulated by Prysmian Group.

According to the company, Sandvik SAF 2507 is austenitic-ferritic stainless steel that performs well in highly corrosive conditions and it offers excellent resistance to stress corrosion cracking, pitting and crevice corrosion, erosion-corrosion, and corrosion fatigue.

Mero is an expansive pre-salt oilfield in the Santos Basin offshore Rio de Janeiro with immense oil production potential. As one of the most prestigious projects in South America, the Mero oilfield is being managed by the Libra Consortium, made up of a partnership between Petrobras, Total, Shell Brasil, CNPC, and CNOOC Ltd.

The first phase of the project – Mero 1 – is an ultra-deepwater project consisting of up to 17 wells and one FPSO, situated approximately 180 km offshore Rio de Janeiro in the pre-salt area of the Santos basin at a water depth of approximately 2,000 m below sea level with oil production due to start in 2021.

Alan Souza, sales manager at Sandvik, said: “There are several advantages to using steel tubing over plastics, but the main one is reliability in challenging conditions. At Sandvik, we have been observing market trends in Brazil closely for the past 20 years and are well placed to support the transition from thermoplastic to more robust steel.”

It is worth noting that Brazil’s offshore construction specialist Estaleiros do Brasil Ltda completed the construction of two modules for the FPSO Guanabara MV31, which will operate on the Mero field, in late January.

The FPSO will be contracted by Petrobras through a lease and operate contract for the Mero field. The FPSO is planned to be deployed at the Mero field in 2021 and the charter is for 22 years.

When completed, the FPSO Guanabara MV31 will have a processing capacity of up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day and 12 million cubic meters of gas per day.

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