Recently, Seatrium’s Tuas Boulevard Yard held a naming ceremony for floating storage, production, and offloading (FPSO) unit Bacalhau, the largest vessel of its kind deployed in Brazil.
As early as January 2020, Equinor and MODEC signed a sales and purchase agreement (SPA) for the FPSO, covering the front-end engineering design (FEED) and pre-investment of the FPSO.
Equinor made a final investment decision (FID) on the $8 billion Bacalhau project in June 2021. The development includes 19 subsea wells that will be tied back to the Bacalhau FPSO. In addition to Equinor, Bacalhau project partners include ExxonMobil, Petrogal Brasil S.A. and Pré-Sal Petróleo S.A. (PPSA).
The topside modules of the FPSO were designed and built by Norwegian contractor Aibel, and the hull was delivered from Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Corporation(DSIC), a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited, in July 2023.
The Singapore’s Seatrium was in charge of undertaking integration work on the FPSO. Its scope of work includes the fabrication of topside modules, riser, mooring, and umbilical structures, followed by the installation and integration of these components. They are also involved in the pre-commissioning and commissioning support for the FPSO.
The Bacalhau FPSO will have a production capacity of 220,000 barrels per day and will be deployed at the Equinor-operated Bacalhau field, located in the pre-salt area of the Santos Basin offshore Brazil, under two licenses, BM-S-8 and Norte de Carcará.
The vessel has received the Approval in Principle (AiP) for DNV’s Abate Notation, making it the first new-built FPSO in the world to achieve this recognition. This notation requires stringent management of emission systems and substantial abatement measures onboard to minimize greenhouse gas emissions.
The FPSO will be MODEC’s 17th FPSO/FSO vessel delivered in Brazil and the first FPSO for MODEC in partnership with Equinor.