Blog

Karoon Energy announced last week that it has completed the drilling program in Santos
Basin, offshore Brazil, with drilling rig Noble Developer from owners NobleCorp. The vessel
mobilised to Brazil in April, 2022 to carry out the Company´s first workover campaign and
field development in Brazil. Interventions were made in the Baúna, Patola and Neon fields.
It is now expected that the drilling unit will be mobilised to Shell.

Enauta resumed production from well 7-ATL2HP-RJS (“2HP”), in Atlanta field having returned after an interruption that began in March, forced by a failure of a surface equipment. The company informed that
production was resumed after the replacement of a pump on the seabed. The production unit Petrojarl I installed at Atlanta field produces around 30,000 barrels of oil per day with storage capacity for 180,000 barrels. The company stated that it will keep the market informed about the matter

Pré-Sal Petróleo S.A. (PPSA) shared a new report with relevant information about the production levels on the pre-salt fields of the production sharing agreement. Following the good performance from the beginning of 2023, the combined production of the 7 assets operated under this regime reached 868 thousand bpd in February, 3% upward from January and an impressive 86% increase when compared to the same period from 2022. Búzios field alone accounts for almost 52% of the total production registered in February with 447 thousand bpd. The podium is completed by Mero with 215 thousand bpd and Sépia with 101 thousand bpd.

The Finnish company Wärtsilä has been awarded with a contract to supply the energy generation package for 3R´s FPSO P-63. The contract also foresees the optimized maintenance of the system for 5 years to guarantee desired performance and reliability. Operated by 3R Petroleum, FPSO P-63 is in operation at the Papa-terra field, in Campos Basin, offshore Brazil.

Fendercare Marine announced its rebranding to James Fisher Fendercare, to simplify and streamline its identity for customers and the global markets it serves, by further aligning with its parent company James Fisher and Sons plc. As a world-leader in ship-to-ship operations and a major global supplier of marine products, the rebrand to James Fisher Fendercare showcases how this long-standing expertise is underpinned by the strength and stability of James Fisher and Sons plc, an innovative organisation with a 175-year heritage. The rebrand is effective immediately and has no effect on the legal status of the company, or its trading divisions.

Karoon announced that production from its Bauna oilfield and the recently on-stream Patola field offshore Brazil will remain suspended into May. Karoon and the fields’ FPSO operator Altera & Ocyan are undertaking both essential and proactive work with the focus on the ongoing detailed inspection of the Cidade de Itajai floater’s production system. Karoon will provide another update on the timing to resume production in its first quarter report which is expected to be issued on April 27th.

Petrobras released this week the tenders to charter two production units for the Sergipe Águas Profundas (SEAP) project. The SEAP-I and SEAP-II units will be deployed in deep waters of the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, with an expected kick-off in production by 2027, according to the National Oil Company’s latest strategic plan. The design of these units can prove to be more complex and expensive due to specifics of the project. The SEAP-I unit had already been tendered before however, the whole process was cancelled by Petrobras, as it was released under a BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) concept, that was ultimately considered economically inefficient at the time.

The National Petroleum Agency (ANP) reported that production in the pre-salt totalled 3.268 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, an increase of 2,3% compared to January. This volume surpasses the previous record of 3.142 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, recorded in October 2022. Furthermore, the total Brazilian oil production including pre-salt, post salt and other fields reached 4.183 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. The Tupi field, in Santos Basin pre-salt, was the largest producer of oil registering 824.5 thousand barrels of oil per day. The FPSO with the highest oil and natural gas production was the FPSO Guanabara, which produced 178,776 thousand barrels of oil per day in the Mero field.

The Australian oil company has shut down Baúna´s field production due to a containment incident associated with the high-pressure flare on FPSO Cidade de Itajaí. According to the company, production stoppage happened on March 28th, 2023 in a safe and controlled manner. Altera&Ocyan, the FPSO operators, investigated the source of the leak and made the necessary repairs by March 30th. However, Karoon and Altera&Ocyan have decided to postpone production restart to undertake a full inspection and testing of associated systems. It is expected that production will restart by mid-April.

Last Monday, Petrobras and Equinor have signed a LOI to further extend their cooperation in offshore wind power in Brazil. This cooperation aims to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of seven different projects on the Brazilian coast. The combined power generation of the projects is estimated at 14,5GW. The offshore wind segment is seen with high hopes to support and advance the energy transition worldwide and especially in Brazil, where Petrobras intends to allocate more and more resources into low carbon emission projects. The kick-off of a wind offshore industry in Brazil could serve as incentive for more Construction Support Vessels (CSVs) to be either built or dispatched for projects in the country, a vessel category with very high utilization and that most offshore support owners are shifting their focus to.

Tidewater and Solstad have jointly announced a S&P agreement for 37 PSVs from Solstad’s global fleet. The agreement will see Solstad’s exit from the segment, shifting the company’s focus to high-end AHTS and subsea vessels which can service not only the oil and gas industry but the offshore renewables segment as well. As for Tidewater, this agreement strengthens their position as one of the leading global OSV operators, with an increased fleet totalling 228 vessels. With the acquisition, Tidewater’s fleet also becomes one of the youngest in the globe as well as the largest in terms of hybrid propulsion vessels. The PSV market has heated up worldwide and Tidewater’s new modern fleet will lift them as major player in every region of the world.

The Danish origin company has been awarded with 3 new contracts for its L-types AHTS’s in Brazil. The term contracts are for 3 years firm period. The scope of work involved in the contract is a broad variety of anchor handling activities and drilling rig movements. Maersk Leader, Maersk Lancer and Maersk Launcher are the vessels involved in these contracts. Besides above mentioned L-types, Maersk also have working in Brazil another 2 T-types, 1 M-Types AHTS’s and 2 V-types PSVs.