Out with the old FPSO after eight years, in with the new one at oil field offshore Brazil

A floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel is leaving an oil field off the coast of Brazil after spending eight years there, as another unit prepares to take its place once the field’s operator, Brava Energia, former 3R Petroleum before the merger with Enauta, gets the remaining requirements out of the way.

The Brazilian energy firm’s activities to replace the FPSO Petrojarl I, which worked at the Atlanta field in block BS-4 in the Santos Basin since 2018, with the FPSO Atlanta, bought for Atlanta’s Full Development System (FDS) in 2022, are now almost over.

Following the naming ceremony held at the Dubai Drydocks World shipyard in December 2023, the FPSO reached Brazil in May 2024, enabling the start of activities to connect it to the wells at the field. With 19 out of 20 anchor installations completed, activities to connect the first two wells to the FPSO Atlanta were originally anticipated in June 2024.

Previously, all operations were to be wrapped up to enable the first oil from the FPSO Atlanta in August 2024, initially with six wells online, reaching ten wells in 2029. However, the operator of the Atlanta field said in July 2024 that the production start-up could be affected by the announced strike of regulatory agencies’ employees.

As part of the production transfer to the FPSO Atlanta, well #4 was disconnected in early October, leading to the firm’s average production reduction. At the end of the month, production through the FPSO Petrojarl ceased and well #5 was closed, initiating the unit’s decommissioning process. OneSubsea installed the first multiphase pump (MPP) station at the Atlanta field ahead of schedule, with the additional two completed within a week of each other.

On the regulatory front, Brava Energia confirms that the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels (ANP) scheduled the measurement system inspection for the FPSO Atlanta in the last week of November 2024. As a result, the firm plans to complete the submission of other conditions required by ANP for the start of operations of the FPSO by the end of November 2024.

The FPSO Atlanta can store 1.6 million barrels of oil (boe) and process 50,000 boe and 140,000 barrels of water per day. Chartered and operated by Malaysia’s Yinson Production, the vessel will stay on the Brazilian field for 15 years. Brava Energia can also extend its stay further thanks to a five-year optional period.

Meanwhile, the firm stopped production at the Papa-Terra oil field in the Campos basin off the coast of Brazil a few months ago. Since then, ANP authorized an increase in the number of people on board the floating units, including FPSO and the tension leg wellhead platform (TLWP), and granted authorization for the operation of the rig installed on the TLWP in October 2024.

Afterward, maintenance and integrity recovery activities gained speed, with production resumption expected in December 2024. Additionally, the workover for pump replacement on well PPT-051 has resumed with the rig’s approval. This follows Constellation’s agreement to sublet the Alpha Star rig for 30 days during the ongoing contract with Brava Energia.

Regarding the Brazilian firm’s Parque das Conchas acquisition, enabled by an agreement to get a 23% stake in the asset held by QatarEnergy, the process is now in the final approval stage. The average production for the asset in 2024, corresponding to the acquired stake, was 6.1 thousand boe/day.

Brava Energia, which is the operator of Potiguar Cluster, Recôncavo Cluster, Peroá, Papa-Terra, and Atlanta assets, expects production resumption at the Manati field in Q1 2025.