Petrobras puts Lula field FPSO into service

RIO DE JANEIRO, February 16, 2016 – The Cidade de Maricá FPSO vessel has started operations, Brazil’s Petrobras announced on Tuesday, marking the seventh production system for the Santos Basin’s pre-salt layer.

The addition of the FPSO, operating in 2,120 metres of water some 270 kilometres offshore, means the Santos and Campos Basins will soon account for 35% of Brazil’s oil output. Together with two other recently installed FPSOs, it will produce some 205,000 bopd from seven wells. The four previously installed production systems, which entered into service between 2010 and 2014, have a combined output of 475,000 bopd from 19 wells. Two more FPSOs, the Cidade de Saquarema and the Cidade de Caraguatatuba, will become operational later in 2016.

Also on Tuesday, Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported that President Dilma Rousseff would relax the restrictions on foreign entities’ shares in pre-salt production-sharing contracts.
Shell, meanwhile, said it would not sell its 80-percent share in the Bijupira-Salema field, located in the Campos Basin and including the Fluminense FPSO. First announced in January 2015, Shell said in a statement released on Tuesday that it could not elaborate on the decision, simply stating that the field “would remain in Shell Brazil’s portfolio.”

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