A Petrobras tender for the charter of two floating production, storage and offloading vessels to exploit hydrocarbons from the ultra-deepwater section of the Sergipe-Alagoas basin offshore Brazil could risk falling into oblivion, as invited companies are not displaying appetite to submit bids.

For decades, Petrobras has produced from the shallow-water portion of the Sergipe-Alagoas basin, but the two FPSOs in the tender will be the first two units to be installed in water depths of more than 2000 metres.