Petrobras stops Albacora field output due to oil and gas leaks

Petrobras has shut down production from its floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit P-31, located in the Albacora field in the Campos Basin offshore Brazil, due to gas and oil leaks. 

According to Reuters, the incident occurred on Tuesday, January 19. This was the second time in eight days on Tuesday that Petrobras stopped output from the FPSO.

The state-owned oil company Petrobras said it shut down the FPSO P-31 after a mixture of oil and water leaked in the FPSO’s pump room, the news agency reported.

Federação Única dos Petroleiros (FUP), the workers’ union in Brazil, said the case was alarming as it was similar to the one that happened in February last year on the FPSO Cidade de São Mateus when nine workers lost their lives, and 26 were seriously injured.

According to FUP, the company’s management tried to minimize the seriousness of the incident claiming the alarm was triggered by the leak of a mixture of oil and water, not gas. However, the workers on board denied that saying they could smell the gas, the union stated.

Furthermore, the union added, the gas alarms went off on the same unit a week earlier.

The union said it would ask to participate in the investigation of the incident.

First oil from the Albacora field was produced in 1998. The field has two production units, the semi-submersible P-25 and FPSO P-31.

The 283,000 dwt deepwater FPSO is located in 330m water depth. The FPSO’a processing capacity is 200,000 bopd and 130 mmcf/d of gas, while its storage capacity is 1,000,000 bbls.

Offshore Energy Today Staff