With 17 ongoing subsea system projects, FMC is the leader in manufacture and deployment of complete subsea systems in Brazil. In August 2009 FMC signed a US$90 million contract with Petrobras to supply a subsea separation system for its Marlim field.
FMC signed a US$130 million contract with Chevron for the Frade field subsea system in 2006. The whole system is being built at the FMC facility in Rio de Janeiro. The contract includes 19 horizontal subsea trees, 22 wellheads, pipeline end manifolds (PLEM), pipeline end terminations (PLET), control systems and other equipment.
Some of the equipment was delivered in 2007 and the remaining items in 2009.
The Frade field is located in approximately 1,330m (4,000 ft) of water, 370km (230miles) offshore in the North Campos basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
FMC is using its two industrial facilities in Rio de Janeiro for production and its support base in Macae for logistics.
This was FMC´s first subsea development in Brazil and still is FMC´s most complete scope for an overall subsea system in Brazilian waters.
FMC was also awarded a contract in August 2009, by Petrobras, valued at US$90 million, to supply a subsea separation system for the Marlim field, in the Campos Basin.
This contract scope consists of the supply of a subsea separation and pumping system. The subsea separation module will separate heavy oil, gas, sand and water at a water depth of 900m (2,950 ft). The system will apply FMC´s separation and sand management technologies, utilizing a novel pipe separator design, licensed and developed in cooperation with Statoilhydro. This is the first deepwater deployment of subsea separation technologies in a mature field, and the first separation in heavy oil and water in a subsea environment in the world. It will also be the first separation system to include subsea reinjection of water into a reservoir in order to boost production.
The final equipment manufacturing and integration activities will be performed at the company´s Rio de Janeiro facility, with deliveries projected to begin in 2011.
FMC has some 17 subsea projects in operation off the Brazilian coast and the tendency is for this number to increase in the near future. In Brazil, FMC has onging contracts with BG, Chevron, Petrobras and Shell.
Claudio Paschoa
photo courtesy of FMC Technologies Subsea Systems