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major technological challenges. The innovative BSR concept placed that connect the buoy to the production platform. In was a unique design in the industry at the time and helped addition to bringing production to the PEUs, it is intended to reduce the FPSO riser motions to a very minimal level. With absorb their dynamic movements. This is the main idea of the this con? guration, the movements of the ? oating platform are BSR,” he says. not transferred integrally to the rigid risers, reducing the dam- With the buoy holding the pipes that conduct the oil and gas age because of the fatigue and guaranteeing their useful life from the well on the seabed to the FPSO, it relieves the load even in severe meteoceanographic conditions. According to applied to the platform. Another advantage is to allow the in-

Ricardo Francis, consultant of the Management of Technol- stallation of the risers even before the arrival of the production ogy of Pipes and Risers at Cenpes, the buoys together are re- platform. “The economic advantage was the anticipation of sponsible for the production of 240,000 barrels of oil per day. production. If you prepare everything before you get to the “We studied a buoy system to take the dynamics of rigid lines production unit it simply connects the risers and you can an- because they internally have a coating that prevents corrosion ticipate 3 to 6 months of production,” says Ricardo. Although of the steel due to the presence of gases such as H2S and CO2 there were teething problems in the installation of the ? rst and this coating has a more demanding calculation procedure, BSR, which led to delays in this ? rst installation, the opera- with the presence of the buoy, the useful life of these lines tors are adamant that the system has been working smoothly has increased considerably, making production feasible in the and with no major problems since it started operations in 2014 pre-salt ? elds. From there, ? exible lines, called jumpers, are and that similar systems may be used in other deepwater pre- salt plays in future.

A look at some of the Technological

Challenges associated to the BSR system: • An ef