Brazil's Petrobras brings a third floating platform into production

Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras on Sunday announced the start of commercial production from the giant Sepetiba floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel at its Mero oil field in the pre-salt area of the Santos Basin offshore. 

This is the third production unit at the Mero field, out of a total of five, since two are yet to be installed.

Sepetiba, which has been chartered from SBM and installed at the Mero oilfield in the pre-salt of the Santos Basin, has the capacity to produce 180,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and 12 million cubic meters of gas daily, Petrobras said.

The start of production from the second development phase of the Mero field on the Libra block located more than 180 kilometers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, comes months after Petrobras welcomed the arrival of the FPSO Sepetiba to Brazilian waters. This vessel was chartered in December 2019 under a 22.5-year lease and operation deal with SBM Offshore. 

With the seconf phase, the Mero field will reach a production capacity of 410,000 b/d. Two additional development phases of 180,000 b/d each, Mero-3 and Mero-4, are currently under construction, with start-ups expected by 2025.

The Sepetiba FPSO is part of a production system comprising eight producer wells and eight water and gas injection wells interconnected to the unit. The vessel has been designed for zero routine flaring to minimise greenhouse gas emissions, with the associated gas reinjected into the reservoir, according to Petrobras.

The FPSO comes with innovative technologies to boost production efficiency and enable carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) activity, where CO2-rich gas is reinjected into the reservoir to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Mero field produces around 230,000 barrels of oil and 15 million m3 of gas every day. This field is operated by Petrobras (38.6 per cent), in partnership with Shell Brasil (19.3 per cent), TotalEnergies (19.3 per cent), CNPC (9.65 per cent), CNOOC (9.65 per cent) and Pré-Sal Petróleo (PPSA) (3.5 per cent), as the government’s representative in the non-contracted area.

“The production start-up of Mero-2 is a new milestone for TotalEnergies in Brazil, a key growth area for the company. With its vast resources and world-class productivity, the Mero development delivers low-cost and low-emission oil production, in line with the strategy of our company,” Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies, commented.

The Mero field is currently also home to the FPSO Pioneiro de Libra, with the capacity to produce up to 50,000 bpd, operating the early production system (SPA 2), and the FPSO Guanabara, with the capacity to produce up to 180,000 bpd, which reached its production peak of 179,000 barrels of oil per day in February 2023, about eight months after the first oil. 

Mero is the third largest field in Brazil, after Tupi and Búzios, also located in the pre-salt area of the Santos Basin. Petrobras plans to put 11 additional FPSO units into operation in the pre-salt layer offshore Brazil by 2027, which will take production to 2.4 million boe.

Over the next five years, Brazil is expected to spent a major part of its $102 billion investment funds in oil and natural gas, with $11.5 billion earmarked for projects that will enable a reduction in carbon footprint.

Petrobras has also recently started drilling operations in the Equatorial Margin, stretching along the Brazilian coast from the state of Rio Grande do Norte to Amapa.