MODEC confirms delivery of 16th FPSO for Brazil’s oil & gas sector

Japanese FPSO operator MODEC has confirmed that a new floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel achieved its first oil after starting a 25-year charter in the pre-salt Santos Basin for the country’s state-owned energy giant, Petrobras.

MODEC’s confirmation about the achievement of the first oil from the FPSO Anita Garibaldi MV33 comes after Petrobras announced on 16 August 2023 that the FPSO Anita Garibaldi was put into production, as the second unit since May 2023, to operate in the post-salt and pre-salt of the Marlim and Voador fields. The first of two FPSOs that are part of this project was the FPSO Anna Nery, which came online in May 2023.

Soichi Ide, President & CEO of MODEC Offshore Production Systems (Singapore), commented: “This is MODEC’s 14th project in partnership with Petrobras. We are proud to deliver the FPSO Anita Garibaldi MV33, which will play a critical role in Petrobras’ revitalisation project in the Campos Basin.”

Deployed for production operations at the Marlim field in the Campos Basin off the coast of Brazil, the FPSO Anita Garibaldi is leased on a 25-year time charter contract to Petrobras. MODEC says that this is one of its longest charters to date and highlights that this vessel is its 16th FPSO/FSO unit delivered to the Brazilian oil and gas sector.

Jean Paul Prates, Petrobras CEO, remarked: “The implementation of the new platforms in the Marlim field this year represents greater longevity for our operations in the Campos Basin, whose production will increase significantly with the entry of the FPSO Anita Garibaldi.

“This project to revitalise the basin represents yet another learning experience for us, as well as an opportunity to contribute even more to the development of the region, as well as the local goods and services industry that serves us.”

While MODEC was responsible for its engineering, procurement, construction, and mobilisation, including topsides processing equipment as well as hull and marine systems, SOFEC, a MODEC group company, was responsible for the design and procurement of the spread mooring system for the FPSO.

“Delivering an FPSO to replace existing production facilities in the field was challenging in terms of design and engineering. The COVID-19 pandemic also brought unexpected and unprecedented challenges. Nevertheless, we are proud to have delivered the project safely through the teams’ hard work, solidarity and innovation,” added Ide.

Moored some 150 kilometres off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, at a water depth of approximately 670 metres, the FPSO Anita Garibaldi is capable of processing 80,000 barrels of crude oil and 7,000,000 cubic meters of gas per day and has a storage capacity of up to 1 million barrels of crude oil.

With a total overall weight of more than 40,000 tons, MODEC underlines that the topside is the largest it has installed to date. This FPSO is also the company’s first to utilise the separation tank concept using the vessel’s cargo oil tanks in order to handle large volumes of produced water (up to 270,000 barrels per day) in the oil/water separation process.

The Marlim and Voador revitalisation project, together with complementary development projects and revitalisation projects of other fields, is expected to contribute to increasing the Campos Basin production from about 565,000 boed to 920,000 boed in 2027.