The Cidade de Ilhabela floating production storage and offloading unit (FPSO) sailed from the Brasa shipyard on 15 September, marking the first FPSO to be integrated at Brasa’s quay number two.
The departure of the FPSO is a milestone for 2-year-old Estaleiro Brasa (shipyard). The yard fabricated 10 of the vessel’s 18 modules weighing a total of 12,500-tonne, and integrated the hull and topsides using its heavy lift crane barge, which happens to be the highest capacity heavy lift crane barge in Latin America.
The Brasa fabrication yard is located in Niteroi, a southeast state of Rio de Janeiro. It is owned and operated by Brazil’s Synergy Group (50%) and SBM Offshore (50%).
Brasa says their location within Guanabara Bay clears the way for eliminating major bottlenecks.
The Cidade de Ilhabela is SMB Offshore’s second vessel in the Generation 3 model and is engineered to the specifications of the pre-salt plays offshore Brazil. SBM’s first FPSO was the Cidade de Paraty, which achieved first oil in June 2013. The next pair of FPSOs Cidade de Maricá and Cidade de Saquarema also for offshore Brazil, will mirror the Cidade de Ilhabela. Their modules will also be fabricated at the Brasa shipyard.
The Cidade de Ilhabela is under a 20-year lease contract for Petrobras and will report to Block BM-S-9 offshore Brazil in the pre-salt Sapinhoáfield, located in the Santos basin. The oil produced at Sapinhoá is high quality and medium density, graded at 27 ° API, along with associated CO2 and traces of H2S.
The FPSO will be linked to 20 wells with an estimated production of 150,000bbl/d and will be capable to compress 6MMcu. m/d of natural gas. The vessel is designed to last 25 years. Once in operation, SMB Offshore says the Cidade de Ilhabela will be its largest FPSO.
The Cidade de Ilhabela made a 19,678km trip from China andarrived at Brasa on 12 January. Conversion work had been completed in China in October 2013 and the FPSO then set sail for Brazil in December 2013. The FPSO is owned and will be operated by joint venture partners SBM Offshore and Mitsubishi Corp. under Petrobras’ lease.
Petrobras is the operator of Block BM-S-9 and holds 45% interest with partners BG E&P Brasil (30%) and Repsol Sinopec Brasil (25%).
Image of Cidade de Ilhabela from Brasa
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