FPSO Cidade de Ilhabela leaves for its offshore location

The FPSO Cidade de Ilhabela, departed Guanabara Bay, Brazil, on Sunday, September 21 for the Sapinhoá field, in the Santos Basin pre-salt cluster, off the coast of São Paulo state.

The FPSO has a planned local content rate of 65%, with thirteen of its modules built in Brazil: three at EBSE-Nuclep in Itaguaí, and 10 at the Brasa shipyard in Niterói, where integration and final commissioning took place.

Cidade de Ilhabela will be anchored 310 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, at a water depth of 2,140 m, connected to eight production wells and seven injector wells. The vessel will be capable of producing up to 150,000 barrels of oil per day, compressing up to 6 million cubic meters of natural gas per day and storing 1.6 million barrels of oil. It will also be capable of injecting 180,000 barrels of water per day.

The FPSO is owned and will be operated by Joint Venture partners SBM Offshore N.V., Queiroz Galvão Óleo e Gás S.A.(QGOG) and Mitsubishi Corporation under a 20-year lease contract for Petrobras. The unit is expected to start production in the fourth quarter of this year.

The Sapinhoá area, originally called Guará, is located in exploration block BM-S-9 in the Santos Basin pre-salt cluster. Petrobras is the operator and 45% owner of the consortium that is developing the block, in partnership with BG E&P Brasil Ltda (30%) and Repsol Sinopec Brasil SA (25%).

FPSOs (floating oil production, storage and offloading units) are platform-ships capable of separating oil from gas and from water during the production process, storing it in tanks and then transferring it to oil tankers for transportation. The gas produced by FPSOs is conveyed onshore via gas pipelines.