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discoveries. Other planned projects in Ghana include Tweneboa and Enyera. ? Nigeria:As Africas largest oil pro- ducer, Nigeria already has an established deepwater oil and gas industry with major players including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ENI, ExxonMobil, Shelland Total. Production is underway from the Agbami, Akpo and Erha projects and development is underway at Usan. Planned projects include Bosi and Chota.Latin AmericaLatin America is currently the second biggest deepwater region by total Capex after Africa. Continuing development of the pre-salt basins off Brazil by Petrobras should see this region overtake Africa in 2013. Notable developments in Brazil in- clude Lula (Tupi), Lula Northeast, Guara (Sapinhoa) and Jupiter. Petrobras, the Brazilian national oilcompany, is the largest energy company in Latin America and the third largest in the world. It has reserves estimated at 16 billion barrel of oil equivalent and pro- duction of 2 million boe/d. Over 40 deep- water prospects have been identified off Brazil since 2003 and Petrobras plan todeploy 50 FPSOs and semi-submersibiles by 2020. In November 2011, Subsea 7 confirmed a $500m, five-year deal from Petrobras to supply a deepwater flexible pipelay vessel for developments off Brazil. The new $350m vessel is equipped to transport and install flexible flowlines and umbilicals in water depths of 3,000m. North AmericaThe global economic recession led to asignificant downturn in activity in the 2009/2010 period in this region. In addi- tion to this, the Macondo incident in 2010and the subsequent deepwater drilling moratorium caused oil production fromthe US Gulf of Mexico to fall signifi- cantly. The Macondo spill is likely to im- pact installations in 2012 due to the 18 to24 month lead time for such projects.However, the outlook for 2013-2016 looks promising as many prospective deepwater developments exist and activ- ity is expected to recover by 2013. How- ever, there is a risk that new safety and environmental regulations will make per- mitting in the Gulf sufficiently cumber- some to prevent or delay its full recovery. AsiaDespite a significant decline in activity during the global recession, deepwater basins remain an important focus area fordevelopment in this region. The market began to begin to recover in 2011 and is poised for significant growth over the next five years. Though some areas of Asia are considered relatively benign in metocean terms, Indias Bay of Bengal suffers from harsh wind and wave condi- tions apart from during a four monthweather window and many Asian coun- tries are routinely visited by typhoons.These factors support the use of FPSOs that can disconnect and head for safeports. Future deepwater projects include the continuing development of the Kr- ishna Godavari Basin (India) especially the ultra-deep D6 Satellites fields, the Gehem and Gendalo fields (Indonesia) and Gumusut-Kakap (Malaysia).Australasia Although largely thought of as a shal- low water region, Australasia is seeing an increased focus on deepwater basins, par- ticularly off the coast of Western Aus- tralia. Significant future projects include Gorgon, one of the worlds largest natu- ral gas projects. The development will in- clude subsea completions on the Gorgon 58Maritime Reporter & Engineering News