Brazilian oil company Petrobras has awarded offshore services provider Subsea 7 a "very large" contract for the delivery of subsea equipment for the Mero 3 deepwater field development, offshore Brazil.
A very large contract, according to Subsea 7, is one worth between USD 500 and 750 million.
The Mero-3 field is located some 200 kilometers off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at 2,200 meters water depth in the pre-salt Santos basin.
Subsea 7's contract scope includes engineering, fabrication, installation, and pre-commissioning of 80 kilometers of rigid risers and flowlines for the steel lazy wave production system, 60 kilometers of flexible service lines, 50 kilometers of umbilicals and associated infrastructure, as well as installation of FPSO mooring lines and hook-up.
Project management and engineering will start immediately at Subsea 7’s offices in Rio de Janeiro and Paris.
Fabrication of the pipelines will take place at Subsea 7's spool base in Ubu, Vitória, with offshore operations planned for 2023 and 2024 using Subsea 7's fleet of reeled rigid pipelay vessels.
Petrobras, the operator of the Libra consortium, made the investment decision for the third phase of the Mero project in August 2020.
The Libra Consortium is operated by Petrobras (40%), with partners being Total (20%), Shell Brasil (20%), CNOOC Limited (10%) and CNPC (10%).
Also in August 2020, Petrobras signed a letter of intent with Malaysia's MISC Berhad for the chartering and services of an FPSO to be deployed at the Mero 3 development.
The FPSO, to be named Marechal Duque de Caxias, will have a processing capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil and 12 million m3 of gas per day. The term of the charter and service agreements is 22 and a half years, counting from the final acceptance of the unit, scheduled for the first half of 2024.