Petrobras Starts Latest Pre-Salt FPSO

Brazil's Petrobras has started up oil and natural gas production at floating production, storage and offtake platform P-68 in the Berbigao field in the Santos Basin pre-salt, it said November 14. It is the fourth such unit to start up this year, following P-67 in the Lula field and P-76 and P-77, in the Buzios field.

With processing capacity of 150,000 barrels of oil/day and up to 6mn m³/day of natural gas, P-68 will contribute to Petrobras' production growth, particularly in 2020, with new wells being interconnected in the Berbigao field and the interconnection of wells in Sururu field, the state-owned company said. 

The platform is about 230 km off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, at a water depth of 2,280 metres. The oil production offloading will be made by shuttle tankers, while gas production will be transported through the pre-salt gas pipeline routes. French partner Total, with 22.5%, said the gas would be marketed alongside the oil.

The Berbigao and Sururu fields are in the BM-S-11A, operated by Petrobras (42.5%), in partnership also with Anglo-Dutch Shell (25%) and Portuguese Galp (10%).