Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras announced that on 30 Oct. 2024 the Marechal Duque de Caxias platform ship (Mero 3) has started producing oil and gas in the Mero field located in the Libra Block in the Santos Basin’s pre-salt layer.
Nero 3 can produce up to 180,000 b/d of oil and compress up to 12 MMcm/d of gas. The platform ship will boost Mero’s installed production capacity to 590,000 b/d from 410,000 b/d, Petrobras announced 30 Oct. 2024 in an official statement.
“The FPSO Marechal Duque de Caxias has features that suit Petrobras’ current project of maintaining high production levels, prioritizing decarbonization technologies and environmental care very well,” Petrobras’s Exploitation and Production Director Sylvia Anjos was quoted as saying in the statement.
“The FPSO will be the third of this size installed in the Mero field in the last 30 months, which will boost its installed capacity to 590,000 b/d in the short run,” Anios said.
The Mero 3 FPSO
This floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel is part of Mero’s fourth production system chartered from MISC. There will be 15 wells in total: 8 oil production and seven water and gas injection wells interconnected with the platform through an undersea infrastructure.
The FPSO Pioneiro de Libra and two definitive systems, FPSO Guanabara (Mero 1) and FPSO Sepetiba (Mero 2), are already operating in the Metro field.
Mero 3 will employ innovative technologies to increase production, such as HISEP®, which will become operational in 2028. This equipment will separate oil and gas at the bottom of the ocean, reinjecting the Co2-rich gas into the reservoir. This will free up the gas processing plant on the surface and reduce the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
Mero’s unused field operations will be conducted by the parties to the consortium under the Libra Production Sharing Contract – operated by Petrobras (WI 38.6%) in partnership with Shell Brasil (WI 19.3%), TotalEnergies (WI 19.3%), CNOOC (WI 9.65%), CNPC (WI 9,65%), and Pré-Sal Petróleo S.A (PPSA), which manages the contract and represents the Union in the non-contracted area (WI 3.5%).