Sembcorp Marine, the Singapore-headquartered global offshore, marine and energy platforms providers, is continuing to build its Brazilian shipyard business by completing its second floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for Brazil’s oil and natural gas rich offshore Santos Basin.
Semmarine's yard is called the Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz (EJA) facility and has been located since 2014 in the Espirito Santo state of southeast Brazil in the municipality of Aracruz.
The yard employs up to 4,500 workers during peak periods of production and in addition to tapping into the revived Brazilian offshore oil and gas industry, the EJA yard is offering field developments services for the in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and West African regions.
The Sembmarine-owned yards “Petrobras P-71” FPSO is the second completed for the Tupi B.V. joint venture, majority-owned by state energy company Petróleo Brasileiro, known as Petrobras.
“The FPSO vessel, P-71, has just sailed away from EJA’s shipyard and will be deployed to the ultra-deepwater Itapu field,” said EJA.
Former LNG plan
Atapu is an oil and natural gas field with a shared deposit, located at a water depth of over 2,000 metres in the Santos Basin pre-salt.
Analysts note that for several years BG Group of the UK had spoken about an LNG production project in Brazil’s Santos Basin before being taken over by Shell in 2016. However, EJA’s the new FPSO is oil focused.
“When launched into operation, P-71 will produce up to 150,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD). Measuring 316 metres in length and 54 metres in width, ‘P-71’ has a 1.6-million-barrel storage capacity and can accommodate 166 persons,” explained EJA.
EJA’s “P-71” work scope included fabricating six modules, pipe-racks and a flare, and integrating them on the vessel along with other modules and items supplied by the customer.
The yard said it also executed modification works on the FPSO’s topsides and hull to meet Itapu field requirements.
Premier facility
“Despite pandemic-related challenges which affected the project over a period of 20 months, EJA successfully delivered the P-71 FPSO on schedule, cementing its status as a premier facility in Brazil capable of taking on full engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning work for large-scale offshore projects,” said EJA President Thangavelu Guhan.
“We thank Petrobras and its partners for choosing to work with us on the ‘P-68’ and ‘P-71’ FPSO projects. We would also like to recognise our employees, vendors and community leaders whose assistance is important to our continued success,” stated Guhan.
EJA Chairman William Goh said that as a Brazilian shipyard with international expertise and advanced capabilities, the company had also become a major commercial entity and part of the social and economic fabric of Espirito Santo state and its local communities.
“We are committed to growing our business here by providing world-class engineering solutions for the offshore renewables, oil & gas and other clean energy sectors,” declared Goh.
