FPSO Heads for Petrobras' Mero Field Offshore Brazil

Marechal Duque de Caxias, a floating production, storage, and offloading unit (FPSO) chartered by Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Perobras) from MISC, is headed for the Mero field in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin offshore Brazil.

The platform will start operating in September and has the capacity to produce up to 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil and compress up to 12 million cubic meters of gas per day, the company said in a recent news release.  

The unit will be part of Mero’s third production system and will increase the field’s installed production capacity to 590,000 bpd of oil. The production system includes the interconnection of 15 wells to the unit, eight oil producers, and seven water and gas injectors using underwater infrastructure, according to the release.   

The FPSO platform will be interconnected to HISEP equipment, which will separate the oil and gas at the bottom of the ocean, from where it will reinject the carbon dioxide-rich gas. HISEP is a technology patented by Petrobras that can potentially increase production and relieve the surface gas processing plant while reducing the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions.

Petrobras noted that the FPSO has other technologies for reducing emissions, such as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) where carbon dioxide-rich gas is reinjected into the reservoir.

“Our focus is on producing responsibly and, in this sense, we have adopted technologies to increase production efficiency; in addition, we are constantly concerned with decarbonization in our activities, with cleaner production, intending to continue on our path of reducing greenhouse gas emissions”, Petrobras Director of Exploration and Production Joelson Mendes said.

Mero is the third largest field in Brazil in terms of volume of oil in place, behind only Tupi and Búzios, also located in the pre-salt Santos Basin. In addition to the Duque de Caixas FPSO, Petrobras said it will put another unit into operation in Mero in 2025.

“We are continuing with the Mero project, mainly to guarantee the country’s energy security since the potential of this field is very large and makes it one of Petrobras’ main assets, in which we will invest the efforts of our extremely qualified technicians”, Petrobras Director of Engineering, Technology, and Innovation Carlos José Travassos outlined.

FPSO Sepetiba, the second definitive production system of the Mero field, came onstream in December 2023, while the first system FPSO Guanabara came online in April 2023.

Petrobras operates the Mero unitized field with a 38.6 percent stake. Its consortium partners are Shell Brasil, with a 19.3 percent stake; TotalEnergies, with 19.3 percent; CNOOC with 9.65 percent; CNPC with 9.65 percent; and Pré-Sal Petróleo S.A. with 3.5 percent.

The state-owned company increased its 2023 total oil and natural gas production by 3.7 percent year over year to 2.78 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMboepd). It posted commercial production of oil and natural gas at 2.44 MMboed and oil production at 2.24 million barrels per day. Petrobras also achieved an annual record of total production of oil and natural gas in the pre-salt with 2.17 MMboepd, surpassing the previous record of 1.97 MMboepd in 2022 and representing 78 percent of its total production, it said in a separate news release.

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