Brazil's Petrobras has launched a multi-million dollar tender to contract decommissioning services covering three wellhead platforms at the shallow-water Cacao field in the Espirito Santo basin.

Well-informed sources told Upstream that the long-awaited tender is probably the first in a fresh wave of opportunities for decommissioning work to be carried out in Brazilian waters, given the inevitable end of the production lifecycle of dozens of Petrobras-operated mature fields.

Industry sources said Petrobras invited companies such as Aker Solutions, GE-controlled Baker Hughes, Wood Group, Heerema Marine Contractors, Aecom and Ramboll to submit commercial bids on 6 May.

Petrobras is offering a two-year contract, renewable for an additional two years, with the limitation that no offshore activities can take place between October and February due to the reproductive season for sea turtles in the region.

Sources expect work to begin at Cacao next year. All offshore services must be completed by September 2020 and followed by a final report stating that all decommissioning activities have been successfully executed.

The winning bidder will be responsible for chartering all offshore support vessels — and potentially an accommodation and maintenance unit — to assist in the Cacao decommissioning, as conventional access to the platforms through helidecks has been compromised.

The Cacao decommissioning project, which covers three wellhead platforms located six kilometres offshore, 13 wells and three pipelines lying in less than 20 metres of water, has been moving at a slow pace since the field was shut down in 2010.

In 2016, Petrobras awarded Brazilian player CSE Mecanica & Instrumentacao, now a 100% subsidiary of Aker Solutions, a 10 million reais ($2.7 million) contract to remove some of the topsides modules of the trio of platforms.

Well abandonment activities were completed in September 2016 with the use of the P-59 jack-up drilling rig.

According to the bidding rules of the new tender, Petrobras wants all three platforms — PCA-1, PCA-2 and PCA-3 — to be completely removed from the field, with the contracted company also in charge of finding a destination for the structures and disposed materials.

Inspections carried out by Petrobras in June 2016 detected severe corrosion conditions at some areas of the platforms, mainly under the lower deck of the PCA-2.

Surveys also detected metal scraps from pipeline sections and two containers that fell down to the seabed.

Cacao was discovered by Petrobras in 1977 and came on stream the following year. Output peaked at 500 barrels per day of oil and 10 million cubic metres per day of natural gas in the early 1980s, but the field was producing just 52 bpd at the time operations were halted.

The decommissioning of ageing production systems, subsea infrastructure and related assets is poised to surge in Brazil in the next decade, with studies showing demand for as many as 60 platforms to be shut down and removed from offshore locations.

Besides Cacao, Petrobras currently has six decommissioning projects being considered by regulators, mainly in the Campos basin.

These include the P-7, P-12 and P-15 semi-submersible production platforms on the Bicudo, Linguado and Pirauna fields, the P-33 floating production, storage and offloading vessel on the Marlim field, and the Cidade do Rio de Janeiro FPSO on the Espadarte field.

Petrobras is expected to sell the P-7, P-12 and P-15 for scrap, but is considering using the P-33 in new development projects. The Cidade do Rio de Janeiro will be returned to Modec after its charter comes to an end.

In the Sergipe-Alagoas basin, the contract for the Piranema Spirit FPSO will end soon, but Petrobras is in the process of divesting its 100% stake in the Piranema field. Norwegian newcomer DBO Energy is tipped as the front-runner to acquire the asset, which could stave off decommissioning of the cylindrical floater.

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Petrobras launches Espirito Santo decom tender