MODEC cheers first oil from Brazilian FPSO

Japan’s MODEC has confirmed the start of production from a new floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, which is deployed at Petrobras’ giant deepwater oil field in the pre-salt Santos Basin off the coast of Brazil.

MODEC announced on Monday, 5 June 2023, that the FPSO Almirante Barroso MV32, deployed for production operations at the Búzios field in the pre-salt region of the Santos Basin, had started its 21-year time charter with Petrobras and achieved the first oil production on 31 May 2023. This confirmation comes days after the Brazilian state-owned energy giant announced the beginning of production.

Soichi Ide, President & CEO of MODEC Offshore Production Systems (Singapore), commented: “This is MODEC’s 13th project with Petrobras. We are happy and proud to support our long-time partner in their production activities in Brazil’s continuously growing oil and gas industry.”

The FPSO Almirante Barroso is the 15th FPSO/FSO vessel the Japanese player delivered to the Brazilian oil and gas sector and the eighth for the pre-salt region. The company was responsible for its engineering, procurement, construction, and mobilisation, including topsides processing equipment as well as hull and marine systems. SOFEC, a MODEC group company, designed and provided the spread mooring system of the FPSO.

Furthermore, the FPSO Almirante Barroso MV32 started its navigation towards Brazil in July 2022, following its conversion from a very large crude carrier (VLCC), delivered by COSCO Shipping Dalian in China. The vessel arrived on 5 October 2022 in Angra dos Reis to start commissioning in a local shipyard.

Moored some 180 kilometres off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, at a water depth of approximately 1,900 metres, the FPSO is capable of processing 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day and 6,000,000 m3 of gas per day. This is the fifth platform to start operating in the Búzios field, where the P-74, P-75, P-76, and P-77 units are already in production.

“The FPSO Almirante Barroso MV32 was a highly complex project executed almost entirely during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s teams in the different countries had to adapt their ways of working to overcome unprecedented challenges to deliver this project safely,” concluded Ide.