Brazil's state-controlled oil and gas giant Petrobras announced on Friday its decision to speed up the operations of two pre-salt projects.
The company decided to charter two new floating production, storage and offloading platforms (FPSO) for the Guara-Norte area and Cernambi field (formerly known as the Iracema area), both located in the Santos Basin, off Brazil's southeastern coast.
Each FPSO has an oil production capacity of up to 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) and gas output of eight million cubic meters per day. The FPSOs were initially expected to start operations after 2014, but Petrobras sped up the schedule and they are to come online in 2014.
According to the company, the strategic decision to charter the FPSOs was aimed at bringing forward production start-up in these areas, based on the flow test results initially obtained, which were considered excellent.
Petrobras is the operator of the blocks BMS-11 and BMS-9, where Guara-Norte and Cernambi are located. In the BMS-9 block, the company has 45-percent stakes of the business, while the BG Group has 30 percent, and Repsol has 25 percent.
In Block BMS-11, Petrobras has 65-percent stakes, while BG Group has 25percent and Galp has 10 percent.
