State-run Brazilian oil company Petrobras expects to pump first oil from the offshore Iracema Norte subsalt field in the second half of 2015, its lone new production facility expected to come onstream this year, the company said late Wednesday.

Petrobras holds a 65% operator stake in the BM-S-11 block that contains Iracema Norte, which is part of the Lula complex of oil fields first discovered in 2007. BG Group retains a 25% share, while Portugal's Galp Energia owns 10%.

Subsalt fields such as Iracema Norte have driven production gains in Brazil over the past year, reaching record high output of 702,000 b/d on December 16, after Petrobras installed 10 new production units in the region over the past two years.

But 2015 will represent a lull in production units coming onstream, with just Iracema Norte expected to enter production this year, it said.

The pause, however, comes ahead of 22 new production units being expected to come online in the 2016-2018 period as the company drives toward output of 3.2 million b/d by 2018.

The Cidade de Itaguai floating production, storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, will be installed at Iracema Norte, Petrobras said. The FPSO, which arrived at the Brasfels shipyard Wednesday, was converted at a Cosco shipyard in China from the ALGA VLCC. The FPSO will have 12 processing modules installed at Brasfels before heading out to the Santos Basin by mid-year.

"This project represents the continuation of investments planned for exploration and production of the Santos Basin subsalt area, which will ensure a significant contribution to the area's future production curve," Petrobras said.

The FPSO has installed production capacity of 150,000 b/d of oil and 8 million cu m/d of natural gas, with onboard storage of up to 1.6 million barrels of crude, Petrobras said. The FPSO will be operated by a consortium formed by Schahin and Modec, Petrobras said.