Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras said it will need a “broad and qualified supply chain” to meet the demand for new production systems it aims to install by 2028. This point was made by its Director of Engineering, Technology and Innovation, Carlos Travassos at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) held in Houston last week.
Travassos said Petrobras’ orders account for one-third of the world’s demand for floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels. By 2028, Petrobras anticipates that Brazil’s overall pre-salt production will reach 3.2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d).
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“With the size of our portfolio, we need to capture the entire market. We are going to need more people, more materials, more resources,” Travassos said.
To meet this demand, he said, suppliers will have to be able to offer and implement solutions related to Petrobras’ decarbonization goals.
“There is no room for projects that do not provide for a reduction in emissions,” Travassos stated. According to him, Petrobras has already reduced the emissions intensity of exploration and production activities by 53% from 2009 to 2023.
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Of the 14 new units mentioned by the Director, 10 are already contracted. The FPSOs for Albacora and Barracuda, both in the Campos Basin, are in the process of being contracted; and two units for the Sergipe-Alagoas project (SEAP).
Travassos also recalled that the task of putting 14 units into production in five years is familiar to Petrobras. “We’ve done this before,” he said, recalling that, from 2019 to 2023, Petrobras put 12 FPSOs into production, increasing installed production capacity by 1.7 million barrels of oil per day. He said the increase represented 50% of all production capacity added worldwide in the period.
