Brazilian offshore services provider GranIHC Services is set to land a contract with Petrobras to run maintenance services at two fixed production platforms installed at a pair of shallow-water gas fields in the Santos basin, writes Fabio Palmigiani.

GranIHC – a 50:50 joint venture between local player GranEnergia and Dutch maritime group Royal IHC – defeated strong competition to secure the contract, according to well-informed sources.

The contract was to be officially signed between the two parties this week, but financial terms were not disclosed.

Petrobras offered a one-year contract, renewable for an additional year, featuring maintenance work at the PMXL-1 platform in the Mexilhao field and the PMLZ-1 platform in the Merluza field.

Mexilhao is producing about 7.4 million cubic metres per day of natural gas via the PMXL-1 platform, while Merluza is producing around 700,000 cmd from the PMLZ-1 platform.

Sources also told Upstream that Petrobras has renewed the charter of the catamaran-style accommodation and maintenance vessel CSS Olympia with GranEnergia by a few months until the end of the year.

The vessel’s four-year contract was set to expire this month, and it is understood that GranEnergia is already in negotiations with Petrobras to try to secure an extra extension.

The CSS Olympia has been assisting operations in Mexilhao for nearly a year and is expected to continue in the field by the end of 2018.

Brazilian engineering groups Enaval and Radix Engenharia started working on the PMXL-1 platform in November 2016 to boost production capacity to 20 MMcmd from 15 MMcmd, as part of efforts to transform it into a hub to receive gas from multiple pre-salt fields.

Besides the CSS Olympia, GranEnergia has a second dynamically-positioned flotel – CSS Venus – contracted with Italy’s Saipem to support development work on the Total-operated Kaombo project off Angola.

The three-month contract started in April and carries an extension option for an additional three months.

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GranIHC set for contract