New FPSO Heading for Station Offshore Brazil

Petrobas's FPSO P-63 has left the Quip/Honório Bicalho shipyard in the city of Rio Grande (RS) after the modules were integrated and the platform commissioned.

With a capacity to process 140,000 barrels of oil/day and compress one million m3 of gas /day, the unit is going to the Papa-Terra field in the post-salt Campos Basin, operated by Petrobras (62.5%) in partnership with Chevron (37.5%). 


The P-63 was converted into an FPSO from the tanker BW Nisa, at the Cosco Shipyard in China. The unit arrived in Brazil in January this year for its final construction stages. Altogether 23 process plant modules were installed and interconnected. This was done by the Quip (Queiroz Galvão, UTC, Iesa and Camargo Correa) Consortium and BWOffshore employed about 1,500 workers at the height of construction.


The FPSO P-63 will work together with the P-61 platform, the first TLWP (Tension Leg Wellhead Platform) of its kind built in Brazil, which is in the final stages of construction in Angra dos Reis (RJ). The units comprise the Papa-Terra Project, which provides for the drilling, completion and interconnection of the units to 30 oil producing wells. The entire P-61 production will be transferred to the FPSO P-63, responsible for processing, storage and transfer of extracted oil.



Because the subsea layout of wells needs to be changed to meet environmental licensing conditions, additional work will be carried out on the P-63 in Ilha de Santana, in Macaé (RJ).


FPSO P-63 Technical Details

-Hull Dimensions (length x width. X alt.) 340 m x 58 m x 28 m
-Accommodation: for 110 people 

-Total topside weight (deck/modules): 18,500 tons
-Local Content of Stationary Production Unit: 65%
-Oil Production: 140,000 barrels per day
-Gas Compression: 1 million m3 per day
-Water Injection: 340,000 barrels per day
-Investment: US$ 1.3 billion