OREANDA-NEWS. The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, and Petrobras CEO, Maria das Gracas Silva Foster, attended the work completion ceremony for the P-62 platform, this Tuesday (Dec. 17), at the Atlantico Sul Shipyard, in Ipojuca (state of Pernambuco). Before the ceremony, Rousseff, Graca Foster and their entourages visited the construction works of the Abreu e Lima Refinery, at the Suape Port Complex, in Suape.

After unveiling the plaque celebrating the completion of the work for the P-62, the president noted that in 2003 the shipbuilding industry employed 7000 people, and is currently 79,000 strong. “With oil lifting from the pre-salt picking up speed and gaining scale, Brazil will become the largest oil platform producer in the 21st century,” she said. Six to seven drilling rigs and 19 tankers will be built at the Atlantico Sul Shipyard alone in the upcoming years, remarked the president.

Graca Foster thanked the workers involved in the work and said she was thrilled with the completion of the P-62, the ninth production unit delivered this year. “Last January, we spoke with all companies that would deliver platforms, and we showed how important it would be for us to increase the (oil) production curve. And to do that, we needed to break all records that have already been broken: deliver nine production platforms. We did that today, with the P-62,” she celebrated. She also stressed the importance of the platform and of the Roncador field, in the Campos Basin, to our current and future production.

The P-62 will be capable of processing up to 180,000 barrels of oil and 6 million cubic meters of gas per day. The work created about 5000 direct jobs and 15,000 indirect ones, and reached about 63 percent domestic content. The unit is expected to go on stream in the first quarter of 2014.

Also attending the ceremony were ministers Edison Lobao (Mines and Energy), Aguinaldo Ribeiro (Cities), Helena Chagas (head of the Presidency of the Republic's Social Communications Department), the governor of the state of Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos, the CEO of Petrobras Transporte (Transpetro), Sergio Machado, and Petrobras directors Jose Formigli (Exploration and Production), Jose Carlos Cosenza (Downstream) and Jose Antonio de Figueiredo (Engineering, Technology and Materials), among others.

Visit to the Abreu e Lima Refinery

Before the ceremony, when greeting the workers at the refinery, Dilma mentioned that the Abreu e Lima Refinery will be the largest in the country. “With this refinery, we are taking another step for our country to be a major oil producer and transformer. This refinery you have built will be the largest diesel producing refinery in Brazil. Today is a day of celebration,” she noted. Then, Graca also congratulated the workers: “This is a dream. Everything was possible thanks to your work. Congratulations to all.”

The project is 83.1 percent complete. The unit will process 230,000 barrels of oil per day when the second phase, scheduled to be delivered in May 2015, goes into operation. The figure represents approximately 11 percent of the current oil refining capacity in Brazil. The first phase is expected to start in November 2014.

Construction

The hull of the MT Suva vessel underwent adaptations at the Jurong shipyard, in Singapore, before arriving at the Atlantico Sul Shipyard (EAS), in Ipojuca (state of Pernambuco), in January 2012. At EAS, it underwent the conversion and integration stages in order to be turned into a FPSO vessel, under the responsibility of the Camargo Correia and Iesa consortium (CCI).

The construction of the 15 modules of the platform, responsible for oil, gas and water processing and treatment, was also done in Brazil by means of three packages with contractors UTC Engenharia, in Niteroi (state of Rio de Janeiro) - process and compression modules, and Empresa Brasileira de Engenharia (CEE), in Itaguai (RJ) - process modules.

Once completed, the modules were transported by barges and delivered to CCI, in Ipojuca, where they were hoisted on to the ship's hull and connected for subsequent commissioning and testing, which finalized the construction of the FPSO.

In addition to the modules, the P-62 also comprises a pipe-rack (structure for piping), helideck, flare and accommodations. The unit is capable of generating 100 MW of electricity, equivalent to the consumption of a city of 330,000 inhabitants, and is 119 meters in height, 330 meters long, and its weight exceeds 60,000 tonnes.