Petrobras has started production of oil and natural gas using the P-69 floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) platform in the Lula Extreme South area of the Santos Basin, Brazil.
Located around 290km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro at a water depth of 2,150m, the P-69 is the eighth platform in the Lula offshore field. The FPSO will be able to process up to 150 thousand barrels of oil a day and compress up to six million cubic metres of natural gas a day.
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The platform will extract oil and gas from the field using eight producing wells and seven injection wells.
Petrobras is the operator of the Lula consortium with a 65% interest. Other consortium partners include Shell Brasil Petróleo (25%) and Petrogal Brasil (10%).
Shell Upstream director Andy Brown said: “The Brazilian pre-salt fields are some of the best deep-water provinces in the world. With significant flow rates, deepwater Brazil projects are breaking even under $40 per barrel.
“We commend Petrobras on this production milestone, and we look forward to progressing additional development plans with our consortium partners, as well as for our recently acquired, deepwater Brazil blocks.”
Petrobras noted that the hull construction of the platform was carried out at the Cosco shipyard in China, while the integration of the modules and the final commissioning were performed at the Brasfels shipyard in Brazil.
Discovered in 2006, the Lula field contributes 30% of Brazil’s production.
It is expected to reach peak production in 2020 or 2021, an unnamed Shell executive told Reuters last month.
