Petrobras has carried out its its first ever ’tree -on-wire’ (TOW) installation job in the ultra-deepwaters of its pre-salt area.

The Brazilian operator which has often used its fleet of rigs in the sector for handling tree installation used Akastor’s subsea support vessel Skandi Santos for installing a xmas tree on the Sapinhoá field in 2,130m last month.

The company suggested that it saved 10 rig days, or $5mn, on the job. It has estimated that a rig would require 40 hours to handle a tree installation in 2,400m, while the support vessel could do it in 4 hours.

This type of TOW installation has been done before in Brazil, but not in such deep water. Engineering work is being carried out now to expand the capability of these types of operations to 2,300m and eventually 2,500m.

Major cost savings have also been achieved in Brazilian waters under Petrobras’ PRC-Poco well cost reduction programme.

The first year of the programme was 2013 when costs were reduced by $314mn, but this more than tripled last year to $1bn.

PRC-Poco is comprised 23 elements including unit cost reduction, design optimisation and improved productivity. There is also a direct focus on rig efficiency and availability. Petrobras believes that it saved over $100mn last year as a result in a 2% increase in the fleet’s operational efficiency.

Despite its recent ills, Petrobras finds itself on the top of several recent operator listing. It is now the biggest producer of oil (2.86mb/d) amongst publicly traded companies and fourth when gas is included.

It now also has the biggest fleet of floating production units at 45 - 29 fpso’s, 15 semis and one non-storing production ship. These numbers don’t include four fso’s and the recently commissioned tlp.

Offshore