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PRIO says goodbye to FPSO Polvo
PRIO, the largest independent oil company in Brazil, concluded this week the disconnection process of the Polvo FPSO from the Polvo-Tubarão Martelo Field, in the Campos Basin, where it had been operating since 2007.
The demobilization of FPSO Polvo was possible because of the successful tieback of the Polvo A platform with FPSO Bravo, known as tieback, completed on July 14, 2021.
With the Polvo + TBMT field connection project, PRIO became the first independent company to create a private mature field production cluster in the Campos Basin region.
Named the Phoenix Project, the strategy was conceived to revive two fields that were in the final stages of economic life, about to be abandoned, and that can now generate positive results for society as a whole.
“The success of the tieback between Polvo and TBMT demonstrates the great execution capacity and punctuality of the company’s operational project teams, which are now ready to safely implement future projects, such as the Frade and Wahoo interconnection project, continuing the company’s asset operational optimization culture,” says the company’s Operations Director, Francilmar Fernandes.
FPSO Bravo, built and delivered to the TBMT Field in 2013, will now operate in the field with high operational reliability, processing capacity, power generation, and oil storage, features that, with the tieback, are being shared with the Octopus Field.
The FPSO Polvo is heading to Oman, in the Arabian Peninsula.
Resource optimization and life extension
The interconnection project between the Polvo-A platform and FPSO Bravo will enable PRIO to reduce operating costs (“OPEX”) by about $50 million per year, corresponding to the lease value of the Polvo FPSO and expenses with maintenance and diesel.
Besides enabling a better use of the gas produced for energy generation, thus helping to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in the cluster.
The reduction in the absolute costs of the new cluster will allow more oil to be recovered in the reservoirs, over a longer period, considerably increasing the recovery factor of the fields, extending their useful life by more than 10 years.
“This is an important milestone for PRIO, as it provides a transformation in the reality of these fields, bringing great operational improvement, less environmental impact, and significant cost reduction,” adds Fernandes.