Petrobras is launching one of the year’s first big deepwater project bidding battles, with the Brazilian major scheduled to kick off the previously-delayed tender process for its Tartaruga fields complex in the Campos Basin this week.

The operator is looking for a leased Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel for its Tartaruga Verde and Tartaruga Mestica fields located in Block BM-C36, with the process officially set to get underway on 27 January. Both the non-presalt oil fields make up the Tartaruga complex, and were formerly known as the Aruana and Oliva fields before they were reshelled with their new turtle titles.

The leased FPSO is planned to be used on Tartaruga Verde in an initial phase, before then producing Tartaruga Mestica in a second phase. The FPSO will be located in approximately 1,000 m (3,281 ft) of water, 125 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro State. The planned onstream date is pencilled in for mid-2017.

Bidders have until mid-2014 to submit their technical and commercial offers, likely to be based around a converted vessel. Petrobras is looking for an FPSO with 180,000 b/d of production capacity, with 120,000 b/d of oil and 120 MMcf/d of gas.

Part of the growing problem for Petrobras has been the increasing lack of enthusiastic competition for its more recent FPSO tenders, with this latest one for Tartaruga originally scheduled to get underway in the third quarter of 2013. It was stalled essentially to give the usual international floating production suspects more time to get their ducks in a row with regards to various contract conditions imposed by the operator, mainly related to local content demands and the necessity to have or form joint ventures with local players.

Added to this is the current lack of capacity within Brazil’s domestic yards to fit in this size of project, meaning Petrobras has had to accept that the majority of its latest planned FPSO contracts may have to be done abroad until the local yards and partners have more capacity.

Recoverable reserves on the two fields are put at 351 MMbbl of oil.

  • Petrobras has also confirmed plans to spend, in partnership with its consortium partners, between US $400-$500 million this year on seismic reprocessing and the drilling of up to two wells on the giant presalt Libra oil field. The consortium, led by Petrobras (40%) and including Shell (20%), Total (20%), CNOOC (10%), CNPC (10%) and Pré-Sal Petróleo, approved the 2014 working and investment plan last week.

The two ultra-deepwater wells will be drilled during the second half of this year, with plans for completion in the first half of 2015. Plans also include studies for the new seismic survey and an extended well test at the end of 2016.

The Libra production-sharing contract states that the exploration phase will last four years. The field in the Santos Basin covers a total area of 1,548 sq km (598 sq miles) and was discovered with 2-ANP-0002ARJS in 2010.

  • On a less optimistic note, Brazil’s QGEP Participações confirmed an extension well operated by partner Petrobras on the large Carcará deepwater discovery in BM-S-8 in the Santos Basin had been abandoned due to unspecified “operational problems”. The well was drilled 5 km from the discovery well using Odebrecht Oil & Gas’ NORBE VIII drillship to check out the flank of the discovery.

QGEP owns 10% of BM-S-8, with Petrobras holding 66%, Galp Energia (7%), Sinopec (7%) and Barra Energia do Brasil Petroleo e Gas (10%). A new well will apparently be drilled in two phases starting in the second quarter of this year, with a test of the cemented well planned for 2015, according to QGEP.

However there do appear to be some mixed messages here, with partner Galp adding separately that the drilling of the well on Carcará had been planned to be carried out in two stages anyway “due to the requirement of a rig with the adequate equipment for the drilling of deep reservoirs with a high level of operational efficiency and safety”. That would confirm what DI has previously reported as being likely for this complex well (see DI, 11 November 2013, page 1), with a higher spec rig needed for the second phase high-pressure reservoir test work. Carcará is planned to be produced via an initial replicant FPSO by 2018.

The BM-S-8 partners also expect to start drilling the Guanxuma prospect 30 km from Carcará in 2015.

Galp further added that the consortium had also decided to relinquish the surrounding Bem-te-Vi assessment plan area to avoid the commitment of drilling an additional appraisal well.