Brazilian independent Enauta plans to issue a tender during the first half to start the search for a floating production, storage and offloading vessel for deployment on the Atlanta heavy oil field in Brazil’s Santos basin, subject to an ongoing review.

Enauta has engaged in a detailed re-think of the proposed field development after deciding to go ahead with the project despite the withdrawal of former partner Barra Energia.

Atlanta has an estimated 1.3 billion barrels of oil in place, but development in 1500 metres of water has so far been limited to an early production system, initiated through the Altera Infrastructure-owned Petrojarl I FPSO in 2018.

Enauta has stated that it intends to seek new partners to develop Atlanta and is subjecting the whole project to a comprehensive review—due for completion in February—aimed at boosting resilience to lower oil prices.

An earlier version of the development project featured an FPSO with capacity to produce 50,000 barrels per day of oil.

The scope of this earlier project, which may now change, included a field layout with up to 12 wells, including three used during the early production system.

“All aspects of the project are under review, from subsea layout to configuration of the FPSO. The overall scale of the production system will also depend on the results of this,” one well-informed source said.

A second source with knowledge of the project added that a chartered FPSO is likely to be the preferred option due to financing challenges.

A date for producing first oil from a mid-sized FPSO has been tentatively set for 2023, with rig contracting likely to take place toward the end of this year.

Output from the early production system was running at 17,000 bpd in November, when Enauta was forced to suspend operations after faults were identified in the oil heaters onboard the Petrojarl I FPSO.

Field Development

Enauta's Atlanta floater tender should hit the streets before June