Players jostle for Petrobras prize
Brazilian contractors are abuzz with activity ahead of a 30 June date for
submitting prices on several contracts to fabricate topside plant for the
giant semi-submersible production unit P-55, plus another contract to supply
the deck and integrate topside modules on the same unit.
As currently framed, Petobras is offering contracts for topside modules in
four separate packages.
“This was part of an overall strategy to increase competition among
prospective bidders,” said Pedro Barusco, executive manager for engineering
with the state-controlled company.
Petrobras has made a new dry dock available to companies bidding to build
the deck and integrate the topside modules, although using this facility is
not compulsory, Barusco stressed.
Contractors are still working out their response to the tender, and
partnerships among the mainly Brazilian companies involved are still in a
state of flux.
Petrobras chose to split the P-55 tender into a spray of different contracts
after earlier attempts to use an EPCI format resulted in offers considered
outside the company’s budget parameters.
A lowest bid of $1.65 billion was placed bya consortium led by Keppel FELS
Brazil in 2006, but no contract was signed.
Instead, Petrobras re-packaging the hull into a separate tender then brought
in SBM Offshore’s Gusto Engineering unit to a major re-engineering exercise
that resulted in a much simplified topside unit.
A consortium formed by Brazilian contractors Queiroz Galvao Construcoes and
Camargo Correa won the hull contract, with a price of $395 million.
This hull is being pre-fabricated at a new yard now under construction by
the same consortium, called Estaleiro Atlantico Sul, located in northeastern
Brazil.
However, the contractual terms for the P-55 require that the hull be
assembled at another dry dock facility under construction in southern Brazil
under a leaseback arrangement with Petrobras.
Queiroz Galvao is also a member of the Quip consortium that has built and
integrated topsides for the FPSO P-35 at a location less than four miles
from that Petrobras drydock facility, and this consortium is considered one
of the leading contenders for the P-55.
Petrobras expects to install the P-55 on the Roncador field in 2010.
The unit will put another 180,000 barrels per day of crude processing
capacity in the heart of the Campos basin.
07 May 2008 20:19 GMT
| last updated:
07 May 2008 20:22 GMT
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