Singapore yard wins big conversion contract

Jurong Shipyard in Singapore has won a $1.066 billion contract to convert a crude carrier into one of the world’s largest oil rigs for a unit of the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras. This latest project brings the value of conversion jobs taken up by the yard for the Brazilian market to a total of about $2 billion.

A letter of intent was signed to convert the VLCC Barao De Maua into n FPSO vessel and will be renamed Petrobas-54. This is the sixth conversion job for Brazil undertaken by the SembCorp Marine subsidiary since 1997.

The engineering, procurement and construction turnkey project will be undertaken by Jurong Shipyard and its Brazilian shipyard Maua Jurong. Work on the conversion is expected to begin in August and to be completed in 38 months. On completion, the P-54 will be one of the largest converted FPSO units in the world, capable of full capacity oil production and treatment at 180,000 barrels per day. The FPSO is expected to operate for 25 years without any dry docking in the offshore Brazilian oil fields.

Maua Jurong is involved with the fabrication of the topsides production modules in Brazil. The earlier converted P-43 is currently undergoing topsides commissioning and testing in Maua Jurong with delivery scheduled in the third quarter of 2004. FPSO P-50 is scheduled to leave Jurong Shipyard at end-June for topsides installation, integration and commissioning in Maua Jurong in Brazil.