OREANDA-NEWS. The works for semi-submersible platform P-55 were completed this week. Tomorrow, Sept. 17, platform tilt testing will get underway and, after this step, the P-55 will sail to the Roncador Field, in the Campos Basin, in Rio de Janeiro.

A project that is part of Roncador Field Module 3, the P-55 will be anchored at a depth of about 1,800 meters and connected to 17 wells, of which 11 producers and six water injectors. Oil and natural gas will be offloaded from the platform over submarine pipelines coupled to the unit.

Weighing in at 52,000 tonnes and covering an area of 10,000 m?, the P-55 is the largest semi-submersible platform built in Brazil and is scheduled to go on stream in December 2013. With capacity to produce 180,000 barrels of oil and to treat 4 million cubic meters of gas per day, the platform is one of the world's largest semi-submersible rigs.

The works created about 5,000 direct and 15,000 indirect jobs and reached a rate of 79% domestic content, mainly on account of the fact that construction and integration were done entirely in Brazil. The platform was built in two parts, the hull and topside, which were constructed simultaneously and subsequently joined.

The work done for the unit's hull were performed at the Atlantico Sul Shipyard (EAS), in Pernambuco, from where it went to the Naval Pole, in Rio Grande do Sul, where services continued. The deck and modules were installed and platform systems integrated at the Naval Pole. The sulfate removal and gas compression modules were also built at that site. Other modules, including the CO2 removal one, were built in Niteroi (RJ) and, after completed, transported to Rio Grande.

The operation that engaged the two main parts of the platform (deck and hull), known as Deck Mating, is considered the most challenging landmark in the unit's construction and one of the biggest ever done in the world on account of the weight of the structure (17,000 thousand tonnes) and of the height to which it was raised (47.2 meters). The maneuver was carried out at the ERG1 dry dock, in June 2012, by lifting the deck, an unprecedented technique in Brazil.