Petrobras FPSO tender could be delayed

The Brazilian oil company Petrobras is scheduled to receive proposals next week for eight FPSO hulls, but Brazilian media report that just four of the 13 companies invited to vie for the contract plan to submit a bid.

An unnamed Petrobras source said that if the prices of the bids are not satisfactory, the company is not ruling out delaying the tender. The bidders put market prices for the FPSOs at $800m apiece, but Petrobras has budgeted about $550m per hull.

It was reported last September that Petrobras planned to seek ten FPSOs to pull oil from the Santos Basin pre-salt layer off Sao Paolo state. Two of the vessels are to be chartered-in, while the Rio de Janeiro-based company plans to build hulls for the remaining eight at domestic yards.

The FPSOs will operate in 2,400- to 3,000m-deep water in the basin, where the pre-salt layer is estimated to hold 50 billion barrels of recoverable reserves. The company wants units with 100,000 barrels of daily oil production capacity and 5 million m3 of natural gas capacity. They are scheduled to begin operation in 2013 and 2014.