Brazilian oil major Petrobras has broken a monthly oil production record on its Buzios deepwater field offshore Brazil.
Petrobras said on Wednesday that its four FPSOs installed on the field – P-74 , P-75 , P-76 , and P-77 – reached new monthly production records in July.
According to Petrobras, the Buzios field produced 615,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), and 765,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).
This follows a daily record set by the Buzios FPSOs in mid-July. Namely, the daily production record at the field stands at 674,000 bpd and 844,000 boepd.
To remind, the previous daily record stood at 664,000 bpd and 822,000 boped, reached on 27 June 2020.
It is worth noting that a fifth FPSO is expected to start production in the second half of 2022 and will stay on a charter with Petrobras for 21 years.
The FPSO, to be named Almirante Barroso , will have an oil processing capacity of 150,000 barrels per day and gas processing capacity of 212 million cubic feet per day. The vessel’s oil storage capacity will be 1,400,000 barrels.
Three more Buzios FPSOs to come
In late July, Petrobras approved the start of a tender to build three new FPSOs for Buzios . These units are part of an asset development plan which aims to install a total of twelve units by the end of the decade.
At the end of the development phase, it is expected that the Búzios field will produce more than 2 boepd making it Petrobras’ largest production asset.
The first of the three new units will be the Almirante Tamandaré , which is scheduled to go into production for the second half of 2024. The FPSO will be chartered with a daily processing capacity of 225,000 barrels of oil and 12 million cubic metres of gas.
With such a capacity, the Almirante Tamandaré FPSO will be the largest oil production unit operating in Brazil.
The other two units, P-78 and P-79 , will have the capacity to process 180,000 barrels of oil and 7.2 million cubic metres of gas each. The platforms are expected to start operating in 2025.
As for the Búzios field, it was discovered in 2010 and it is considered the largest deepwater oil field in the world.
It started production in April 2018 through the P-74 FPSO and the rest of the units were subsequently added to the field.