Keppel Offshore & Marine has been awarded a $2.3 billion contract to build a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for Brazilian national oil company Petrobras.
Named P-78, the FPSO will be the seventh unit to be installed in the ultra-deepwater Buzios field, located in the Santos Basin. With a production capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil and 7.2 million cubic meters of gas per day, along with a storage capacity of 2 million barrels of oil, the P-78 will be among the largest FPSOs in the world.
Keppel O&M will fabricate the topside modules weighing 43,000 metric tons (MT) at its shipyards in Singapore, China and Brazil, in addition to integration and commissioning work. Keppel’s partner in the project, South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries, will provide the 85,000 MT hull and accommodations for 240 personnel.
Completion of the FPSO is scheduled for the end of 2024.
“We are pleased to support Petrobras with another major FPSO where we are taking on a much larger scope than before,” said Chris Ong, CEO of Keppel O&M. “This project leverages our well-recognized capabilities as a leading integrator of offshore energy and infrastructure assets, leveraging our strengths in engineering and project management, with a focus on higher value-added work.”
Discovered in 2010, the Buzios field is the largest deepwater oil field in the world, with peak production of 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day expected by the end of the decade. There are currently four units operating in the field, with two more under construction. Two more units are also planned, bringing the total number of units in the field to nine.
