Petrobras has formally awarded and signed contracts that will see the construction of the P-75 and P-77 Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) units that will produce the deepwater Franco field offshore Brazil.

The work will, as previously reported, be carried out by the RIG Consortium of Queiroz Galvão, Camargo Correa and Iesa. The signing ceremony was attended by the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, and the Petrobras CEO, Graça Foster. Ms Graça said that this year Petrobras will conclude eight platforms to help it achieve its goal of doubling production by 2020. “We have 90% contracted in order to be able, in 2020, to double what we produce today, in other words, to reach 4.2 MMbbl,” she said.

The two FPSOs will have a production capacity of 150,000 b/d each, and will be deployed in the so-called ‘Transfer of Rights’ blocks in the pre-salt Santos Basin. Also there will be two other similar units, the P-74 and P-76. The RIG Consortium will be in charge of building the modules of and integrating both facilities, with the work to be done at the Honório Bicalho shipyard in Rio Grande.

The converted vessels are currently at the Cosco Shipyard in China, undergoing hull preparation services, and are expected to arrive in Rio in the second half of 2014, where the conversion work will be performed at the Inhaúma Shipyard. Upon completion, the hulls will then go to Rio Grande. The P-75 is slated to arrive there in the second half of 2015, while the P-77 will follow in the first half of 2016. The contractual domestic content is foreseen to be 65% to 71%.

- The P-55 semisub production platform is due to sail to the Roncador field in the Campos Basin as part of that field’s third module of development. The 180,000 b/d P-55 will sit in a water depth of about 1,800 m (5,906 ft) and be connected to 17 wells. Weighing in at 52,000 tonnes and covering an area of 10,000sq meres, it is the largest semisub platform built in Brazil and is scheduled to come onstream in December.