IMODCO Wins Petrobras Contract To Install SPM At Record Depth

IMODCO, pioneer offshore marine terminal systems company, a division of Amtel, Inc., has received a contract of several million dollars from Petrobras, national oil company of Brazil, for the engineering and design of a Single Point Mooring (SPM) terminal.

It is for speedy installation in the Garoupa Field of Brazil's Campos Basin, 150 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro.

Amtel chairman Jerome Ottmar said the terminal will not only be constructed and delivered in record time—by mid-December 1977—but will be installed at a record depth of 410 feet of water 50 miles offshore from Cape Sao Tome.

The buoy, to be 12.5 meters (about 41 feet) in diameter, 14 feet high, and weighing 213 tons, will be utilized in conjunction with a nearby storage barge SALM terminal. Crude oil will be pumped from the barge through the IMODCO terminal to vessels securely moored to it, with the tankers then transporting their cargoes to refining ports.

During the loading operation, the vessels will easily weathervane around the SPM in response to wind, current and waves. The IMODCO system will be able to withstand a wind velocity of 30 knots, surface current of 2 knots, and wave height of 18.7 feet under operating conditions.

The entire Garoupa Field seafloor production complex is the first dry/sea system in South America, and probably the most modern installation in the world.

Initial production will not involve the use of permanent platforms.

The sizable offshore oil deposits in the Campos Basin were discovered in 1974, with the Garoupa Field expected to produce 200,000 barrels daily. The production and terminal systems including the IMODCO SPM are devised to place the field into production in the shortest possible time.

Other stories from December 1977 issue

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