LNG

Petróleo Brasileiro S.A, the Brazilian oil and gas major known as Petrobras, said a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) is being towed to Brazil from China and will arrive in the third quarter to boost natural gas and crude output in the Campos Basin.

Petrobras said that the “FPSO Maria Quitéria” is scheduled to begin operations in the last quarter of 2024 and would advance a timeline initially planned to commence operations in 2025.

The FPSO will operate in the Jubarte field, located in the Campos Basin's pre-salt layer, offshore Espírito Santo, a state in the southeast of Brazil.

Petrobras said that the FPSO has a production capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil and can process 5 million cubic metres of natural gas.

“The ‘FPSO Maria Quitéria’ is a floating production, storage, and offloading unit equipped with decarbonization technologies such as a combined cycle power generation system and FGRU (closed flare),” Petrobras added.

FPSO deal

Petrobras has chartered the FPSO from Yinson, a subsidiary of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based energy infrastructure and technology company Yinson Holdings, which was also responsible for its construction.

Yinson secured a deal with Petrobras for the supply, operation, and maintenance of the FPSO back in February 2022.

The FPSO set sail for Brazil on May 7 following a naming ceremony held at Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry (Shanghai) Shipyard in China.

The latest oil and gas project development comes as Petrobras has welcomed a new Chief Executive, Madga Chambriard, who said on June 19 that the country's President had asked her to work towards boosting the nation's economy.

Chambriard took over as the state-run energy company's CEO after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva fired its former CEO Jean Paul Prates last month.

Executive team

The CEO announced a new management team with the appointment of three new directors with technical know-how.

Fernando Melgarejo was appointed as Chief Financial Officer and will take over the role from Sergio Caetano Leite, who was also ousted alongside former CEO Prates.

Petrobras is also overhauling its finances as it has agreed to join a government tax-debt renegotiation programme that would result in an estimated 11.9 billion Brazilian reais ($2.19 billion) hit to its second-quarter net income.

In a securities filing, Petrobras said it had agreed to pay the Brazilian government a total of 19.8Bln reais to end several tax cases, equating to a 65 percent discount from the original amount the tax office said was owed by Petrobras.

Seatrium of Singapore, the shipyard engineering company, with continued project successes in oil and LNG with many projects to work on through 2025 has signed an accord with Shell Global Solutions to explore and strengthen collaboration opportunities in Floating Production Systems through leveraging their engineering capabilities and technologies.

Seatrium, formerly called Sembcorp Marine Ltd and renamed as Seatrium following its merger with Keppel Offshore & Marine, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ethe Shell unit focusing on driving project standardisation and replication while seeking to promote best practices in the design of floating systems.

The Singaporean company noted that Seatrium and Shell had worked together on various projects over the years, including the recently-announced Sparta floating production unit (FPU), which is conceived as a replicable project to leverage the Group’s topsides single-lift integration methodology, following the
fabrication of Vito and Whale FPU newbuilds in 2021 and 2023 respectively.

Collaboration

“We are pleased to deepen our collaboration with Shell, leveraging both parties’ competencies and technologies in past Floating Production Systems projects,” explained William Gu, Executive Vice President of Seatrium Oil & Gas (International).

“We look forward to continuing working with Shell to mutually learn and develop best-in-class project management practices to achieve operational efficiency in future floater projects, benefitting both parties,” Gu stated.

Seatrium also said in April 2024 that the its shipyard engineering activities would include more LNG project successes.

The company as secured a series of major contracts with an aggregate value of S$350 million (US$259M), to be completed by the end 2025, reinforcing its reputation as a market leader in vessel repairs, upgrades and conversions.

Seatrium, formerly called Sembcorp Marine Ltd and renamed as Seatrium following its merger with Keppel Offshore & Marine, is moving forward in the sector after big LNG delivery highlights in 2023.

These included the successful delivery in November 2023 of the Greek floating storage and regasification unit, the “FSRU Alexandroupolis”, now deployed offshore northeast Greece as part of a Balkans LNG supply hub. 

Conversions

The backlog of FSRU conversions involves three LNG Carriers (LNGC) being converted to FSRUs for Turkish company Karpowership, with an option for a fourth project.

Seatrium also in November last year handed over the LNG production unit for the BP-led FLNG project offshore Senegal and Mauritania in West Africa and also involving Dallas-based US company Kosmos Energy.

The group’s businesses include oil & gas newbuilds and conversions, offshore renewables, repairs & upgrades, and new energies, to advance the global energy transition from its 60 years of experience in the offshore industry.

Seatrium operates shipyards and engineering and technology centres in 12 countries including Brazil, China, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and the UK and the US as well as Singapore.

Challenger Energy, the Americas-focused and London-listed exploration and production company, has formally signed the Area 3 licence offshore Uruguay where field resources include around 9 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The Area 3 licence was awarded under the Open Uruguay Round process and, following final regulatory approvals being granted, was signed in Montevideo on March 7.

“Accordingly, the Area 3 first exploration period will commence on 7th June 2024 and will run for four years, until 6th June 2028,” said Challenger.

Depth and range

The Area 3 licence covers an area of 13,252 square kilometres located in relatively shallow water depths (from 20 metres to 1,000 metres) around 100 kms (62 miles) off the Uruguayan coast.

“The block has substantial existing 2D and 3D seismic coverage, with two previously identified material prospects possessing currently estimated gross resource potential of up to 2 billion barrels of oil and up to 9 Tcf of natural gas,” said Challenger.

Uruguay’s state-owned oil and gas company ANCAP awarded Challenger with the Area 1 block licence in May 2020 and the company confirmed a farm-out process for the block three years later.

“Thanks to the farm-out agreement with Chevron Corp., the company is in the process of divesting a 60 percent interest in the Area 1 block,” explained Challenger.

During the initial exploration period, the Company's minimum work obligations on the Area 3 block are relatively modest, comprising licensing and reprocessing of 1,000km of legacy 2D seismic data and undertaking two geotechnical studies.

“The company intends to follow a similar strategy to that successfully adopted for the Area 1 licence (the farm-out of which to Chevron was announced on 6th March 2024), specifically to accelerate its technical work programme including additional discretionary work,” Challenger added.

Strong position

Eytan Uliel, Chief Executive of Challenger, said that the signing of the Area 3 licence cements the company’s position as a significant industry participant in Uruguay's offshore.

“It represents a successful expansion of the company's business in Uruguay, a country that has fast become one of the world's frontier exploration hotspots,” explained Uliel.

“We believe that Area 3 has strong technical merit and offers an exciting value-creation opportunity,” the CEO stated.

Challenger noted that to the east is the Brazilian maritime border, an area that was subject to considerable licensing in December 2023, with 13 nearby Brazilian blocks licenced variously to Chevron, Shell, China National Offshore Oil Corp. and Brazil’s Petrobras.

To the south, the block is adjacent to two deepwater Uruguayan blocks, Area 6, held by Houston, Texas-based APA Corp. and Area 7, which is held by Shell.

ExxonMobil Corp. and its partners in huge oil and gas discoveries offshore the tiny nation of Guyana in the northeast corner of South America may develop a liquefied natural gas project at the behest of the Government.

June 15 (LNGJ) - Saipem of Italy said it was awarded a limited notice to proceed (LNTP) by BW Offshore for the early-stage engineering services for the supply of a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit. The FPSO will then be provided to Shell and its partners for the development of the Gato do Mato natural gas and oil field located about 200 kilometres offshore Brazil in the prolific Santos Basin in water depths of around 2,000 metres.

   “The LNTP is a key step ahead for this initiative and the Saipem project team is already fully mobilized. Upon completion of the LNTP, Shell and its partners target to award a lease and operate contract which will include the award of the engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (EPCI) of the FPSO to a consortium comprising Saipem and BW and with expected delivery in 2026,” said Saipem.

Norwegian energy company Equinor, whose Hammerfest LNG plant comes back on stream in mid-May 2022, said “unprecedented” European natural gas prices in the second half resulted in record high annual and fourth-quarter adjusted earnings after gas output was boosted.