Page 39: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2011)

www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 39 said, “Petrobras is the oil company with the greatest growth potential for the coming years, in five years it will have between 25 billion and 30 billion boe in reserves and has 85% of its revenue from the Brazilian market, pro- cessing its oil in its own refineries and selling its products internally.”

Investment in Shipbuilding, Rig Construction

Petrobras has already ordered 12 drilling rigs from inter- national shipyards for delivery up to 2012. It will need at least another 28 drilling rigs, planned to be built in Brazil for delivery from 2013 - 2018. The first seven of these contracts have been set aside for a single shipyard, making it possible for the tender winner to invest heavily enough to increase its shipbuilding technology capabilities and introduce a high level of automation, in order to achieve an efficient production line and meet the deadlines, thus helping to make the shipyard competitive in the interna- tional market. 49 tankers (three product tankers of 45,000

DWT in final round of bidding) have already been ordered by Transpetro to six different national shipyards, with deliveries scheduled from 2010 to 2015. Of these, only two have been delivered up to now.

Fourteen production rigs and

FPSOs to be connected to 184 oil wells, will be soon be needed for the early pre-salt production, from a total of 95 rigs Petrobras is estimated to need by 2020.

The current Brazilian fleet of offshore support vessels of all kinds is estimated to increase around 59% by 2015, reaching a total of 422 vessels. Of the current fleet of vessels, 85% are on contract to Petrobras. This increase may even eventu- ally be higher as Petrobras alone is expected to need to double its fleet, because of the distances involved in the pre-salt E&P.

Plans also call for a hybrid FPSO production line at the

Rio Grande shipyard in Rio Grande do Sul, for the pro- duction of a first installment of eight nationally built

FPSOs for the pre-salt. The plan is to develop construc- tion methods based on repetition, creating an efficient and highly automated production line for the FPSO hulls and topsides, with advanced finishing capabilities and high

Petrobras ordered 12 drilling rigs from shipyards for delivery up to 2012. It will need at least another 28, planned to be built in

Brazil for delivery from 2013 - 2018.

Petrobras President Sergio Gabrielli speaking about the pre-salt development plans. (Photo: Petr obras)