After departing the Benoi shipyard in Singapore on July 13th, the FPSO P-78 arrived today, September 30th, at the Búzios Field, in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin. The unit will now be connected to the wells to begin production shortly.

The Búzios Field is located in ultra-deep waters of the Santos Basin at depths of up to 2,100 meters, 180 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state. The Búzios 6 project involves 13 wells: 6 producers (with 2 convertible to injectors), 6 Water Alternating Gas (WAG) injectors, and 1 gas injector. The unit will be interlinked with rigid pipelines for production, injection, and gas export, as well as flexible pipelines for service lines and gas lift.

The FPSO P-78 is the seventh unit planned for the field and will join six other platforms currently in operation: FPSOs P-74, P-75, P-76, P-77, Almirante Barroso, and Almirante Tamandaré. The P-78 has a production capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd), in addition to compressing 7.2 million cubic meters (m3) of gas daily.

Transporting the unit with the crew onboard allows production to begin approximately two weeks earlier than the traditional approach of stopping in sheltered waters. Moving the FPSO manned enables several complex systems to remain operational, ensuring continuity of commissioning activities and team training on these systems. This approach significantly reduces the time between the unit's arrival at the field and the start of oil production. Following arrival and prior to entering service, anchoring operations and connection of the platform to the producing wells will be carried out, a process expected to take about two months.

The hull was constructed at shipyards in Yantai and Hayang, China, and Ulsan, South Korea, where the blocks were also integrated. The FPSO was then transported to a shipyard in Singapore, where the topside modules built in Brazil (at the Seatrium Angra dos Reis Shipyard, formerly Brasfels), China, and Singapore were integrated and commissioned.

"The P-78 joins the other production units to further boost production at the Búzios Field, which has already surpassed a daily output of 900,000 barrels of oil," said Sylvia Anjos, Director of Exploration and Production.

According to Renata Baruzzi, Director of Engineering, Technology, and Innovation, "The compliance with the scheduled timeline for the platform's completion reinforces the importance of integrated management of our projects."