Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petrobras has launched a fresh tender to charter an accommodation and maintenance vessel to carry out campaigns at offshore developments in the South American oil and gas powerhouse.

Two well-informed contracting sources told Upstream that Petrobras invited contractors to submit proposals on 22 December for Class 2 dynamically positioned flotels equipped with at least 350 berths.

Petrobras will accept monohulls, semi-submersible units, compact semisub vessels and small waterplane area twin hulls in the tender.

Petrobras is offering a 10-month charter, renewable for an additional six months, with operations set to start up to 90 days after awarding of the contract.

As with other recent Petrobras tenders, the process will be conducted under a reverse auction scheme, in which participants will be allowed to engage in a bidding contest after submitting initial offers.

Petrobras currently has a fleet of five flotels off Brazil — Safe Notos, Safe Eurus, OOS Tiradentes, Aquarius Brasil and Posh Xanadu — with contracts expiring between November 2021 and February 2024.

Separately, Petrobras said in a note to contractors and obtained by Upstream that it started formal negotiations with Sacanb Offshore for the contracting of a drilling rig for operations off Brazil.

Sacanb was the low bidder in a Petrobras tender to charter up to two deep-water rigs after it proposed the cylindrically shaped semisub Sevan Developer for a dayrate of $139,360 and a mobilisation fee of $7.9 million.

The letter makes no mention of whether or not Petrobras will contract a second unit. China Oilfield Services Limited finished second with the semisub SS Amazonia for a dayrate of $150,000.

Rigs And Vessels

Petrobras launches contest for new flotel charter off Brazil