Petrobras, the Libra Consortium operator, signed a contract on Monday (10/6) with the SBM Group to charter and operate the second definitive production system of Mero field, located in the northwestern area of the Libra block. The unit will be deployed in the Mero 2 project, about 180 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and an average water depth of 2,100 meters in the pre-salt of the Santos Basin.

The FPSO platform (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) will link up to 16 wells with a capacity to process up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and 12 million cubic meters/day of gas. Production is expected to start in 2022. The platform will join the FPSO Pioneiro de Libra, dedicated to early production systems, in operation since November 2017; and the FPSO Guanabara, the first unit planned for the definitive production system of Mero field, with production start-up scheduled for 2021.

"With this signature, we completed the contracting of the planned production arrangement for Mero field in the 2019-2023 Business and Management Plan. By the end of the plan period, we will have two definitive production systems under operation, which could add up to 360,000 barrels of oil per day to the production capacity operated by Petrobras. With the information now obtained in ongoing tests, we confirmed the high production potential of Mero field, which has an estimated reserve of 3-4 billion barrels,” said Carlos Alberto Pereira de Oliveira, Petrobras' Upstream Executive Officer.

The unit will be operated by SBM, the company in charge of its construction, with a FPSO charter period of 22.5 years. Part of the construction will be carried out in Brazil, in a model similar to that adopted by other units chartered by Petrobras.

The Libra Consortium is operated by Petrobras (40%), in partnership with Shell (20%), Total (20%), CNPC (10%) and CNOOC Limited (10%), under management by Pré-Sal Petróleo S.A. (PPSA).