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November 2012www.marinelink.com 771990s with the discovery of significant oil reserves in the Campos basin off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian government auctioned off ex- ploration blocks and through the initia-tives of the national operator, Petrobras, along with other firms in the global oil in- dustry, there were multiple discoveries of deepwater oil reserves. In the early 2000s discoveries in the ?pre-salt? area off the Northeast coast led to anticipation that Brazil would become a major exporter of oil as these reserves were developed to their full commercial potential. Around 2007, major pre-salt plays were discovered in the Santos Basin, mostly located in deep waters, far from shore. This confirmed that the country had a true potential to become a major oil ex- porter. It brought to earth the need for a variety of rigs, drillships, crude and LNG tankers and support vessels to serve the O&G industry and as a direct conse-quence a rebirth of the local shipbuilding industry was required. The Brazilian shipbuilding industry has been embarked on an impressive growth curve, growing from a low of less than 2,000 jobs in the year 2000 to the currentlevel of around 60,000 jobs. Shipyards that had been mothballed are now re- vived, and new purpose built facilities -- everything from small yards that build only modules for rigs to major shipyards which intend to compete with the bigshipyards in China and Korea which cur- rently dominate the world market. All firms involved in shipyard construction, shipbuilding, including equipment man- ufacturers and service providers are re- quired to fulfill local content demands. Shipbuilding policy in Brazil is over- seen by SINAVAL, which is the Brazil- ian shipbuilders union. SINAVAL and ONIP (National Organ- ization of the Petroleum Industry) devel- oped a local content database for theshipbuilding industry which includes equipment, products and materialsneeded by shipyards, these are based on real case purchases for a PSV, a Tanker and an FPSO. The database is shared with the supplychain in order to increase local produc-tion (see Table below).Franco Papini, SINAVAL?s executive vice-president, co- ordinates the local content initiative. Pol- icy on local content in the workforce is decided by the Brazilian government and Brazilian Shipbuilding Figures  6.2 millionDWT order book  11New yards under construction  18 Offshore Oil Platforms under construction 21Offshore Deepwater Drilling Rigs Bid 47Shipyards operational  59kWorkers directly employed Petrobras Investment Program: From 2011?2020 undertaking the world?s largest E&P  50 Production platforms  50Drill rigs 500Offshore supply vessels  130Oil tankers(Continued on page 79)MR#11 (74-81):MR Template 11/6/2012 8:15 AM Page 77