UK company BG expects to begin ultra-deepwater production from two new floating platforms off Brazil's southeast coast by December, the firm said on Thursday.

The FPSO 4 unit is due online at the Santos basin's Sapinhoá North field by the end of the third quarter, while FPSO 5 is set to begin operating at Iracema South in Q4.

"Both vessels were around 95% complete at the end of the [second] quarter," BG said in its half-yearly results report.

Work on a sixth unit is 65% complete. It is due to start production by December 2015, the London-based firm added.

Sapinhoá North is located in the pre-salt BM-S-9 block, in which BG has a 30% stake alongside Petrobras (45%) and Repsol-Sinopec (25%).

The BM-S-11 block's Iracema South field is operated by Petrobras (65%) with BG holding 25% and Galp Energia 10%.

Meanwhile BG reported a 10% decline in global Q2 production volumes to 53.8Mboe, weighed down by its flagging liquefied natural gas operations in Egypt.

Despite a bright outlook in Brazil, the company said its 2014 production guidance remained at "the lower end" of the 590,000-630,000boe/d range.

"This reflects the issues in Egypt and the acceleration into 2014 of production sharing contract effects in Kazakhstan following higher than reference condition oil prices," the company added.

BG posted a US$268mn year-on-year rise in Q2 profit to US$1.37bn and ended the period with a net cash position of US$4.97bn, up from US$4.71bn.