Petrobras to simplify projects and pay less for FPSOs

In the new era of austerity, project simplification and cost cutting announced by Petrobras, expenses with platform ships (FPSOs) will certainly be the center of attention of the company’s board of directors. The company now aims to limit the amount paid for these platforms to US$ 3.5 billion. The oil company’s Director of Engineering, Technology and Innovation, Renata Baruzzi, highlighted that the goal is to simplify projects and attract more suppliers for greater competitiveness in bidding processes, using replica FPSOs as a reference.

“When we made the first replicators, the topsides weighed no more than 30 thousand tons. Today, the topsides of the Búzios FPSOs are weighing more than 60 thousand tons. So, we need to go back to basics. That is the work we are doing. We took a project from the replicators and evaluated: what do we need to change to make a leaner project? We concluded this study and are already implementing it in several projects”, reported the executive.

The director also states that Petrobras seeks to optimize spending in the subsea area. “We work hard with the market, looking for new suppliers, and in the last bidding process we had a pleasant surprise: we received four proposals, well below the previous ones”, she said.

Renata explained that the bids for the new FPSOs of Albacora, Sergipe Águas Profundas (SEAP 1 and 2) and Revitalização de Marlim are already leaner. “The Albacora project, for example, is already much simpler. We also implemented several simplifications in SEAP 1 and 2. Because of this, the bidders themselves asked for an additional 60 days to prepare their proposals,” she stated.

Finally, the director confirmed that the bid for the FPSO for the revitalization of Barracuda-Caratinga was canceled, after the failure of negotiations with the Indian company Shapoorji. “We went back to the drawing board and will review all the points, possibly even the production capacity of the platform. We will review the entire project. Nothing is off the table,” she said. Finally, Renata raised the possibility of reusing one of the three platforms that are in the decommissioning queue in the Barracuda-Caratinga field.

In the notice for the canceled bid, Petrobras intended to contract a platform with the capacity to produce up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and process up to 6 million m3 of gas daily. The project is part of Petrobras’ plans to revitalize the Campos Basin.