According to CCTV news, on August 1, the super-large FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) built by China Merchants Heavy Industry slowly set sail at the Haimen Yangtze River Terminal in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, going to the relevant operational waters.
This FPSO is equivalent to an “offshore mobile chemical plant”, with a main hull length of 351 meters, a beam of 60 meters, a gross weight of 44,000 tons of upper modules, and a working water depth of 1,985 meters. Equipped with a multi-point mooring system, it can meet the marine environmental conditions in West Africa, South America and other regions, and is suitable for oil and gas development operations in many areas of the world.
As previously reported, this FPSO is owned by Dutch FPSO operator SBM Offshore, and the FPSO was officially named “FPSO Almirante Tamandaré” at the end of July.
The FPSO Almirante Tamandaré is described with SBM Offshore’s leading Fast4Ward® universal hull design and is expected to have a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity of less than 10 kgCO2e/boe1, with a capacity of 225,000 barrels of oil and 12 million m³ of natural gas per day, and is expected to be put into operation in the second half of 2024. This is the sixth FPSO in the Buzios field and the largest FPSO currently operating offshore Brazil.
The FPSO will be deployed at Brazilian state-owned energy giant Petrobras’ oil field off the coast of Brazil, the Buzios field. The field is located in the Santos Basin, about 180 kilometers offshore Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is the world’s largest deepwater oil field.
In early 2022, SBM Offshore sold a minority stake in the FPSO Almirante Tamandaré to two Japanese companies; and in March 2023, SBM Offshore completed project financing for the FPSO, securing loans totaling $1.63 billion from a consortium of 13 international banks, insured by four international export credit agencies ( ECAs) to provide insurance.
Currently, the FPSO Almirante Tamandaré is owned and operated by a special purpose company, SPC, which is owned by a subsidiary of SBM Offshore (55%) and its partners (45%).