Japan's Mitsui Ocean Development and Engineering (MODEC) said on Tuesday it signed an agreement with Brazil's Petrobras to supply an oil platform to drill at its Tupi sub-salt field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. ( Reuters )
According to MODEC, the memorandum of understanding involves the construction, charter and operation of the rig that will be used in the pilot project at the Santos Basin's Tupi field, which has estimated recoverable reserves of between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels.
The floating, production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) platform with a capacity of 100,000 barrels a day and 150 million cubic feet a day should arrive in Brazil at the end of 2010, it said.
The FPSO will initially be linked with five wells and possibly with four more, said MODEC, which already operates five FPSOs in Brazil. Petrobras expects to install a total of 11 wells at the field.
Other sub-salt reserves thought to exist in the area, which some analysts say could total between 50 billion and 70 billion barrels, could vault Brazil from 17th to 10th among global oil producers.