Petrobras starts production from first FPSO in Sépia field

Brazilian oil and gas company Petrobras has started producing oil and natural gas from the FPSO Carioca, the first platform in the Sépia field, in the Santos Basin pre-salt off Brazil.

The FPSO is located approximately 200 km off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, in water depths of 2,200 meters. The FPSO Carioca, a unit chartered from Modec, has the capacity to process up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day and to compress up to 6 million cubic meters of natural gas.

Modec took delivery of the Carioca FPSO from the Chinese shipbuilder Cosco Dalian in November 2020. The 332-metre-long Carioca FPSO was converted from the Flandre VLCC. The finished FPSO sailed away from the Brasfels shipyard in Angra dos Reis towards Petrobras’ Sépia field in early July.

The project foresees the interconnection of seven producing wells and four injection wells to the FPSO. The oil production will be flown out by offloading vessels, while the gas production will be drained through the pre-salt gas pipeline routes, Petrobras said on Tuesday.

The FPSO is supposed to be in operation for the next 21 years.

The project also has a system to remove CO2 from the gas produced and to reinject it into the reservoir, reducing the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and improving its oil recovery.

The Sépia shared reservoir is composed of Sépia and Sépia Leste fields, located in the Transfer of Rights and Concession (BM-S-24) areas, respectively, operated by Petrobras (97.6 per cent), in partnership with Petrogal Brasil (2.4 per cent).