Victor Bomfim News

Brazil’s Petrobras has been one of the leading players in deepwater, subsea development projects since the turn of the century. These projects include pre-salt and post-salt plays, which require extensive and complex subsea engineering and construction efforts. It would be impossible for Petrobras to develop all of its projects alone, therefore much is done by specialized companies, mostly of foreign origin. “We could not have advanced in this project (pre-salt) conventionally, developing the production individually. We needed a global vision of the projects, starting from a high level plan,” said José Formigli, Petrobras’ Executive Director of E&P, speaking of the primary plan for the development of the pre-salt at the Santos Basin, the Plansal, which was created in 2008.

Subsea 7 S.A. has been awarded a contract by Petrobras worth in excess of U$350 million for operation of the Pipe Lay Support Vessel (PLSV). The contract is on a day rate basis for five years. Kommandor 3000 will start operations under the contract in 2013 (Subsea 7 note that during the year this vessel will spend approximately 90 days in dry-dock for maintenance). The work scope is similar to the current contract, including project management, engineering and the installation of Petrobras supplied flexible lines and equipment on a day rate basis.