Contract signed for Brazil FPSO

Dutch bank ABN Amro’s specific purpose company CDC in Brazil has signed a contract with Brazil’s federal energy company Petrobras to build the topside of the P-53 FPSO. This FPSO will produce oil at the Marlim Leste field in the Campos Basin, located 120 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state at a water depth of 1,250 m.

CDC will be responsible for contracting the construction of the FPSO in Brazil and Singapore and will deliver the vessel in 29 months. Singapore shipbuilder, Keppel Yard, will convert the hull of the 1983 built 322,446 dwt VLCC Settebello in Singapore. In Brazil, the Marlim Leste consortium will build the topside production units while Britain’s Rolls-Royce will supply the power generation plant and US engineering company Dresser the gas compression unit. CDC’s total investment in the FPSO is reported to be $950 million and is scheduled to start producing heavy crude from 15 production wells in 2008.

Once converted, the P-53 will have the largest turret ever fabricated and installed in the world and will have the capacity to produce 180,000 b/d of oil and 6 million cubic metres a day of natural gas. Production will be taken to shore via an underwater line and a pumping platform known as PRA-1 that has also been contracted by Petrobras.

Petrobras requires that 75% of power generation parts and gas compression units and 55% of topside and production units be Brazilian-made.