Recently, CIMC Raffles, a subsidiary of CIMC Group, has signed an EPC contract with Seatrium, a Singaporean offshore giant, for the hulls of two Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels for Petrobras. Together with this new order, the number of FPSOs delivered and under construction by CIMC Raffles for Petrobras reaches six, further consolidating CIMC’s leading position in the global offshore sector.
FPSO is known as “offshore oil processing plant” and Petrobras is the largest FPSO user in the world. The two FPSOs under contract are P-84 and P-85. As the new generation of FPSOs for Petrobras, both FPSOs have a production capacity of 225,000 barrels of oil per day and a natural gas handling capacity of 10 million cubic meters per day.
Characterized by high capacity, the FPSO prioritizes innovative technologies for sustainability, such as zero conventional combustion and emissions, variable speed drives, and measures to control emissions and capture carbon dioxide in order to achieve a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity.
CIMC Raffles is responsible for the EPC of the hulls, living buildings and some of the modules of the two vessels. After delivery, the FPSOs will be deployed in the Atapu and Sepia fields in the eastern part of the Santos Basin in Brazil, approximately 200 kilometers offshore from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In recent years, as the global deepwater development business continues to recover, there is a strong demand for FPSO market. Grasping the opportunities in the industry, CIMC Raffles has regarded FPSO as a strategic business and enhanced its FPSO production capacity through the establishment of a specialized oil and gas research and development center, expansion of sites and increase in infrastructure, taking advantage of the resource endowment of deepwater terminals, and innovating the module construction mode, so as to provide sufficient resources to promote business development.
Up to now, CIMC Raffles has delivered the P-71 hull and P-78 hull segments as well as the upper modules of several FPSO projects of Petronas, and undertaken the EPC contract for the construction of P-80 and P-83 FPSO hulls.