Gallery: FPSO Almirante Barroso En Route to Brazil

Japanese FPSO leasing company MODEC said Wednesday that the FPSO Almirante Barroso MV32 had started its navigation towards Brazil last Sunday. The FPSO is bound for deployment at Petrobras' Búzios deepwater oil field.

The FPSO left the Cosco shipyard in China on Sunday, July 17. It will carry out navigation tests for five days in the Chinese waters, then make stops in Singapore and Mauritius, where it will supply and change the crew, before arriving in Brazil at the BrasFELs shipyard, in Angra dos Reis (RJ), in October, when the final stage of commissioning and acceptance tests are scheduled, Petrobras said in a separate statement.

The FPSO Almirante Barroso MV32 – which will have the capacity to produce up to 150,000 barrels of oil and process 6 million cubic meters of gas daily – is the 15th platform delivered by MODEC for the Brazilian offshore sector. 

This will be the 5th FPSO deployed at the Búzios field. The Búzios field is 100% operated by Petrobras and is situated 180 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, in the giant “pre-salt” region of the Santos Basin, Brazil, at a water depth of approximately 1,900 meters.

MODEC is responsible for the engineering, procurement, construction, mobilization, chartering and operations of the FPSO, including topsides processing equipment as well as hull and marine systems. According to World Energy Reports, Cosco Dalian was responsible for the handling of the tanker hull conversion to FPSO.

The FPSO Almirante Barroso will be connected to 10 wells at the Búzios Field, which today produces around 575 thousand barrels of oil per day.

Info on MODEC's website shows that the FPSO is expected to start producing oil at the Buzios field in 2022. The FPSO is expected to stay at the site until 2043.