The Japanese Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) provider MODEC has been awarded a contract with Equinor to supply an FPSO vessel for the MC-C-33 block of the Campos Basin just offshore Brazil.
This comes after a $9-billion investment into the development of the BM-C-33 project by Equinor and its partners Repsol Sinopec Brasil (35%) and Petrobras (30%).
The BM-C-33 project contains three pre-salt discoveries in Pão de Açúcar, Gávea and Seat containing natural gas and oil recoverable reserves with the equivalent of more than one billion barrels of oil.
"The FPSO is one of the most complex facilities in MODEC’s history, handling large volumes of exported gas, with a major focus on GHG emissions reduction," MODEC said.
It has committed to delivering the vessel in 2027 and to providing Equinor with operations and maintenance services for the FPSO for the first year of its oil production.
The FPSO will be deployed at the pre-salt field in the southern region of Campos Basin, about 200km offshore from Rio de Janeiro and permanently anchored at a water depth of about 2 900m. The spread mooring system will be provided by the MODEC group company, SOFEC Inc.
MODEC will be responsible for the design and construction of the FPSO, including a hull marine system, topside processing equipment and a minimum storage capacity of 2 000 000 barrels of crude oil. The topsides will be designed to produce about 125 000 barrels of crude oil per day, and to produce and export about 565 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
The FPSO will be using MODEC’s new designs with a full double hull, created to accommodate bigger topsides, larger storage capacity and a longer design service life.
"Taking advantage of this larger topside space, this FPSO will be the second fully electrified FPSO equipped with a Combined Cycle System for Power Generation, which significantly reduces carbon emissions compared to conventional gas turbine-driven systems," said MODEC.
“We believe this award represents a strong relationship of trust between us, built upon the ongoing Bacalhau FPSO project as well as our robust track record in the pre-salt region. We look forward to cooperating closely with Equinor and partners to make this project a success,” commented Takeshi Kanamori, president and CEO of MODEC.
