Petrobras Squeezes More Oil from Mega Platforms

Brazil’s national oil company is producing more than the designed capacities of offshore platforms deployed at Buzios and other deep-water fields, helping to push its output to a record high as the Iran war squeezes global supply.

Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras has added 134,000 barrels a day of surplus production, or about 5% of its oil output, at a group of offshore production and storage vessels known as FPSOs. The company has added the equivalent of a multibillion-dollar platform “at no cost,” said Renata Baruzzi, the executive director of engineering, technology and innovation. 

“This has become the new normal. We’re going to conduct this study for all platforms,” she said in an interview. 

Petrobras pushed beyond the design limits of the Almirante Tamandare super platform at Buzios, the biggest deep-water field ever discovered, and is replicating the strategy at other FPSOs. The approach allows the company to supply a market rocked by the war in the Middle East without waiting years for new vessels to be built. The capacity expansions helped Petrobras reach a record 3.34 million barrels a day of oil equivalent per day in the second quarter.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as it is formally known, currently has seven retrofitted FPSOs operating above capacity, and three additional vessels are coming online, which is expected to result in an increase of 124,000 barrels per day compared to initial projections. Petrobras has begun studying how to expand another FPSO known as P-79, also located in Buzios.

Petrobras is racing to squeeze as much crude as possible from its existing fields while hunting for new reserves to stave off production declines in the 2030s. Oil has become Brazil’s biggest export in recent years, but industry executives warn the country could return to being a net importer within a decade unless exploration advances in frontier offshore regions such as the Equatorial Margin, where environmental licensing has slowed development.

The idea of pushing the limits at this new generation of production vessels emerged from talks with SBM Offshore, which leases the Almirante Tamandare, Baruzzi said. Petrobras executives believed the vessel was the largest platform ever operated by SBM, only to discover that the supplier had an FPSO in Guyana producing 10% above its design capacity at about 250,000 barrels a day, she added.

The strategy involves getting approval from Brazil’s oil regulator to operate closer to safety margins, and connecting additional wells to supply the oil. Petrobras also renegotiates charter contracts with the FPSO owners, she said.  

Despite the push, Baruzzi is careful not to predict that the company will surpass its 2026 production target of 2.5 million barrels a day, because older fields in the Campos and Espirito Santo basins are declining while newer ones like Buzios expand. “We are managing to meet our goals,” she said.