Brazilian FPSO now likely to be back online by November

Exploration & Production

October 12, 2023, by Melisa Čavčić

Brazilian oil and gas player Enauta has changed the timeline for the restart of production from a floating, production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel, which is working on a field off Brazil. This FPSO is now anticipated to come back online by November 2023. Originally, the production was expected to resume by early September but got bumped to October 2023.

After Enauta embarked on preventive maintenance of the FPSO Petrojarl I in May 2023, production at the Atlanta field was expected to resume in mid-June, however, the field came back online at the end of June. Following the resumption of operations, new tests were performed to identify the causes of repetitive failures in the subsea pumping equipment adopted for the field’s early production system (EPS).

Come July 2023, the Brazilian player identified that occurrences were concentrated in the subsea pumping electrical system and temporarily halted the Atlanta field’s production. Once commissioning and tests of new components were performed in August, the company expected production to resume by October 2023.

According to Enauta, the Atlanta field’s production remained offline in September 2023 for the replacement of electrical components of the EPS submarine pumping equipment. As the first pumping set is expected to be ready for installation by the last week of October, subject to support vessel availability and sea conditions, the production is now targeted to resume by November 2023.

Furthermore, a pumping module was contracted with different technology in order to enhance EPS reliability, and installation is scheduled for January 2024. Located in block BS-4 in the Santos Basin, at a 1,500-meter water depth, the Atlanta field is operated by Enauta Energia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, which also has a 100% interest in this asset. The field has been producing since 2018.

Enauta bought the FPSO OSX-2, known as the FPSO Atlanta, for Atlanta’s Full Development System (FDS) in 2022 to replace the FPSO Petrojarl I. Last month, the anchoring campaign started for this FPSO, consisting of the installation of fixing piles for the submarine system’s flexible risers and torpedo anchors.