Espirito Santo News

Malaysian FPSO leasing company Yinson has ordered a suite of electrical and control equipment from Kongsberg Maritime for an FPSO vessel currently under conversion. Kongsberg Maritime will deliver E-house, electrical, control, safeguarding and telecommunication equipment solutions, and the deal also includes service support on board the Maria Quitéria FPSO owned by Yinson. FPSO Maria Quitéria is expected to start work in 2024 at the Jubarte field, part of the Parque de Baleias area in the North Campos Basin, Espirito Santo State, offshore Brazil, for the Brazilian oil company Petrobras.

Oil giant Shell has extended the contract for the lease of SBM Offshore's Espirito Santo FPSO in Brazil. SBM Offshore is also in talks with ExxonMobil to extend the FPSO terms in Guyana.The Dutch FPSO operator said Wednesday that the lease and operation contracts with Shell of the FPSO Espirito Santo would be extended for five years.This means that the end of the contractual lease and operation period was extended from December 2023 to December 2028.SBM Offshore is the majority owner of the lease and operating companies related to FPSO Espirito Santo with 51% equity ownership…

As BBC Amethyst anchored in Porto do Açu, Brazil, she becomes the first vessel to make the big crossing from Antwerp to the Brazilian sea port."Quite an achievement for Port of Antwerp International and the local partners who invested in the Brazilian port, thereby promoting trade with Antwerp. Brazil, the biggest economy of Latin America and number 7 in the world, is a key trading partner for the Port of Antwerp," said a press release from the Europe’s second-largest seaport.A Siemens gas turbine, an essential component of the new thermoelectric power plant of GNA - Gás Natural Açu Ltda, which is a joint venture among Prumo (parent holding company Porto do Açu)…

The global floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) market was valued at around US$ 25 Bn in 2017 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of around 12% from 2018 to 2026, said a new report.Based on type, the global FPSO market can be divided into converted, new-build, and redeployed, said a new report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) on FPSO market.In terms of value, the converted segment dominated the global FPSO market in 2017. Low capital requirement and faster deployment of converted FPSOs as compared to new-build FPSOs are likely to drive the segment during the forecast period.FPSO is a converted tanker or a purpose built vessel that can be multi-hull production semi-submersible, cylindrical shaped production spar/ mono hull, or ship shaped.

With the ongoing development of deepwater pre-salt plays and a decreased demand on local content in tankers and other vessels, Brazilian national operator Petrobras and other super-majors have been looking abroad for better rates and reliable operators of shuttle tankers. Claudio Paschoa, Maritime Reporter’s correspondent in Brazil spoke to Peter Liew, Global Director – Mid Size Tankers, Crude Shipping, about AET Tankers’ history and its operations in Brazil.AET (formerly American Eagle Tankers) was founded in Houston in 1994 primarily to conduct lightering operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The company’s fleet grew to 32 vessels (mainly Aframax tankers but also two VLCCs) by 2003, when acquired by MISC Berhad.

Oil production by Brazilian state-led Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the Campos basin fell 1.4 percent in June over the previous month to 1.042 million barrels a day, its lowest level since 2001, as mature fields decline, according to company data.Output has dropped 15.8 percent in 12 months due to the ageing of fields off-shore from Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo that account for almost half of the crude pumped by Petrobras.

Wärtsilä said it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop a new environmentally friendly tug design for a new port facility being built in the Brazilian city of São Mateus. The MoU, signed with Petrocity, parent company of a new port facility, will see Wärtsilä develop a harbor tug design based on its recently launched Wärtsilä HYTug, which features hybrid propulsion and energy storage using batteries. The prime consideration is to maximize the ecological operational…

To better understand the challenges faced by ship operators in Brazil, Maritime Reporter’s correspondent in Brazil spoke to Paulo Cesar P. Freitas, Fleet Manager for Norsul Shipping company, one of the major shipping operators in Brazil. Established in 1963 and operating continuously ever since, “Companhia de Navegação Norsul”, as it is called in Portuguese, is one of the leading private maritime commerce companies in Brazil. Norsul specializes in dry-bulk, neo-bulk cargoes, general cargo, project cargoes, along with chemicals and liquid cargoes, operating in the Brazilian Cabotage and international shipping markets. Freitas has worked for Norsul for 28 years, starting as Ship Superintendent and today operating as Fleet Manager.

CGG said it has started work on Espirito Santo IV, a large BroadSeis 3D multi-client survey in the deep and ultra-deep waters of the Espirito Santo Basin offshore Brazil. The vessel Oceanic Champion is acquiring the survey which is expected to take seven months. This industry-supported survey will cover 10,300 sq km and be processed at CGG’s Rio de Janeiro Subsurface Imaging center. The high-end broadband sequence will include the latest 3D deghosting, Full-Waveform Inversion (FWI) velocity modeling and Tilted Transverse Isotropy (TTI) imaging.

Shell and its joint venture announce the start of oil production from the third phase of the deep-water Parque das Conchas (BC-10) development in Brazil's Campos Basin. Production for this final phase of the project is expected to add up to 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) at peak production, from fields that have already produced more than 100-million barrels since 2009. "The safe, early delivery of this production is a testament to the efficiency of our deep-water project execution," said Wael Sawan, Executive Vice-President, Deep Water, Shell. "With this phased project, we have again demonstrated value from standardization, synergies from contractual relationships, and the strategic deployment of new technologies.

A Brazilian federal court on Thursday ordered the suspension of activities at Vale SA's Port of Tubarão because of pollution concerns, halting the world's largest iron ore exporter's ability to ship more than a third of its output. The ruling by the court in Vitoria was made as part of a police investigation at the giant man-made port as Vale comes under increasing pressure over its environmental record in Brazil after a dam burst at a mine run by its Samarco joint venture in October, killing at least 17 people.

Two workers died at a construction project at a Brazilian oil terminal operated by state-run Petrobras on Tuesday, adding to a string of fatal and life-threatening accidents, a union representing oil workers said in a statement. The workers drowned after scaffolding they were erecting collapsed at the end of a pier operated by Transpetro, Petrobras' pipeline and shipping unit, the union, known as FUP, said. The pier was at Transpetro's Barra do Riacho Terminal in Espirito Santo state. The employees were wearing security belts even though work authorizations recommended that the employees only use life-jackets, FUP said. Locked to the scaffolding by the belts, they were dragged under water when the scaffolding fell.

Brazil state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA stopped production on Sunday from its P-40 platform in the offshore Marlim Sul field after a gas leak on the vessel, an oil workers' union said on its website on Monday, citing worker reports. The P-40, a semi-submersible production platform, was producing about 45,915 barrels (7,300 cubic meters) of oil and 800,000 cubic meters of natural gas a day when it was shut down, the union said. The P-40 is at the hub of a network of five platforms in Marlim Sul and at the center of oil and gas pipelines that interlink undersea natural gas pipelines into a single export line to the coast. It is also interlinked to a pipeline system that exports oil from the neighboring Marlim field.

An explosion aboard a BW Offshore's oil and gas production vessel in Brazil has killed five people and four workers are still missing, the firm said in a statement on Thursday. The floating production storage and offloading vessel, working for Petrobras suffered an explosion on Wednesday, which also injured ten workers, two of whom are in critical condition. BW Offshore has shut down the vessel and all personnel have been taken off the unit. The FPSO was operating on the Camarupim and Camarupim Norte fields in Espirito Santo littoral approximately 120 kilometres from the coast.   Reporting by Balazs Koranyi

At least three oil workers were killed and others were injured in an explosion on Wednesday at an offshore oil and natural gas platform in Brazil operated by state-run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro SA , union officials said. The workers were killed in an explosion aboard the Cidade de São Mateus, a floating oil production, storage and offloading ship (FPSO), said Davidson Lombo, finance director of Sindepetro-ES, the union representing workers on the platform. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion.

The board of Alstom accepted General Electric's 10 billion euro ($13.82 billion) bid for its energy unit on Tuesday, several sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. Sources said GE is not in exclusive talks with Alstom. The French transport-to-turbines group is also set to receive an offer from its much larger German competitor Siemens AG , which said it had sent a letter to Alstom after its managing and supervisory boards had decided to make an offer. Alstom is expected to make a statement about the two offers early on Wednesday, before its shares, suspended since late last week, resume trading. The rival bids have triggered a fierce national debate about the fate of power turbine and train manufacturing in France - both integral to the country's engineering pedigree.

After spending a day exploring the sprawling Açu Superport and Industrial Complex construction site far up the northeast coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro courtesy of LLX and OSX, Claudio Paschoa, Maritime Reporter’s Contributing Editor in Brazil, flew back to Rio for a conversation with Marcus Berto, LLX’s new CEO at the EBX Group headquarters in downtown Rio de Janeiro. “This is a not simply a port belonging to LLX. This is a port for Brazil,” he said. LLX is the logistics branch of the EBX Group, the company founded in March 2007 by Brazilian entrepreneur Eike Batista, born eying the strong demand for modern, efficient ports in Brazil.

For companies interested in operating in Brazil, it is important to understand the country. •    ABAC – Brazilian Coastal Ship         Owners Association. In addition, it also lodges the companies of the Port Support segment. Syndarma is a proponent of the Brazilian maritime sectors, demonstrating to the public the importance of the employment of Brazilian registered vessels in Brazilian waters as well as the necessity to expand the Brazilian merchant fleet, the return of its position of importance to the country’s external commerce and its participation on the exploration of the O&G reserves on the Brazilian coast. Syndarma has 48 associated companies in the coastal…

Brazil’s Libra pre-salt field, in Block SS-AUP1 in the Santos Basin, with estimated recoverable oil volumes of 8-12 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) and in place volumes of between 25-40 billion BOE, was the country’s first pre-salt field to be auctioned. The rules governing this historical auction have been shunned by important super-majors such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BP and also by major players such as the BG Group and Statoil. Many industry analysts were surprised that state-owned players from China, India and Malaysia dominated the list of companies that have agreed to the controversial terms imposed by the Brazilian government, through its National Petroleum Agency (ANP).

Petrobras announces the discovery of an accumulation of hydrocarbons in deep water, in the post-salt of the Espírito Santo Basin, through the drilling of well 4-BRSA-1265-ESS (nomenclature ANP) / 4-GLF-42-ESS ( Petrobras nomenclature), informally known as Lontra, in a water depth of 1,319 meters. This well, located 81 km from the city of Vitória, state of Espírito Santo, in the concession area Golfinho production, confirmed the presence of gas and condensate, according to data logging and testing cable. The reservoirs were identified 3,055 meters deep and the drilling was completed at 3238 meters. Petrobras is the operator and owns 100% of the production concession Golfinho.

For decades, Vulkan  has been a supplier of couplings, not only for Brazilian offshore industry, but also for military applications. Here business mainly focused on conventional drives such as diesel-electric systems for military ships and submarines. Now Vulkan is positioning itself on the Brazilian market as a system solution provider for nuclear propulsion and supply the Centro Experimental Aramar in Iperó with a RATO S 731T and 14 elastic mounts. The Brazilian government is currently planning the construction of a fleet of six submarines with nuclear propulsion.

US-based material handling manufacturer UniCarriers Americas Corporation (UCA) informs that it continues to expand its South American operations by establishing its Brazilian business unit and appointing Newton Santos as sales operations manager. UCA explains that through its legacy brands (Nissan Forklift and TCM), it has had a presence in the Brazil market for more than a decade. In 2013, UCA hired Santos to research and advise on expansion within Brazil. In January 2014, the company formalized its commitment by establishing a legal entity to operate in Brazil. The company will first focus on its dealer network in São Paulo, and then grow its dealer partnerships in the Southeastern region of Brazil including Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo.

Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA said on Monday it had found "excellent quality" oil in an off-shore well known as Pudim, or pudding, in the Espirito Santo basin. Drilling confirmed oil at around 4,670 meters, the company known as Petrobras said in a securities filing. A previous test had confirmed oil at between 4,305 and 4,383 meters at 35 degrees on the American Petroleum Institute (API) scale. Petrobras is the operator of the consortium drilling in the basin, with a 65 percent stake. PTTEP Brasil Investimentos em Exploração e Produção de Petróleo e Gás has 20 percent, while Inpex Petróleo Santos Ltda has 15 percent.