Brazil’s Petrobras plans to launch a tender in July to contract a third floating production, storage and offloading vessel for its Mero pre-salt field, where the operator is already planning investments of nearly $9 billion by 2023.

On the heels of signing a letter of intent with Netherlands-based SBM Offshore to contract the Mero-2 FPSO, Petrobras is now entering the final preparation phase to issue bid documents to charter a unit for the Mero-3 project.

Well-informed sources told Upstream that Petrobras is edging closer to defining the concept for the Mero-3 FPSO, with a decision eyed for next month, after which the company is expected to begin the contracting process of the floater.

As with Mero-1 and Mero-2, the Mero-3 FPSO will also feature topsides plant with capacity to process 180,000 barrels per day of oil and 12 million cubic metres per day of natural gas.

A tender for a fourth floater is only expected in 2020.

Petrobras executive manager for the Libra (Mero) project Fernando Borges has already suggested the Mero-4 unit could be slightly smaller at 150,000 bpd.

However, a formal decision on the size of Mero-4 is only expected when the Petrobras-led consortium concludes new technical studies on the reservoir in the area next year. Despite suggestions that Petrobras is looking to switch its contracting strategy for upcoming FPSOs to build-operate-transfer (BOT) or build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) formats, sources told Upstream it is likely the oil giant will stick to the traditional lease-and-operate model for Mero-3.

Petrobras has not yet offered a timeline as to when Mero-3 will produce first oil, but it is widely expected the unit will enter operations in 2024.

Mero-3 is poised to be a groundbreaking project for the oil giant as the FPSO is being designed to involve the first use of Hi-Sep, a Petrobras-patented technique for high-density subsea separation of carbon dioxide from natural gas.

The technology is meant to take advantage of CO₂ in a liquid-like state under certain pressure and temperature conditions by re-injecting the corrosive compound back in the reservoir using the Hi-Sep subsea separation system.

According to Borges, the goal is to manipulate CO₂ to reduce the gas-to-oil ratio in the Mero field from 440 to 150 cubic metres of gas per cubic metre of oil, providing huge savings in terms of deck space and overall cost by debottlenecking the gas plant in the Mero-3 FPSO.

“As (the gas-to-oil ratio) increases with time, it is only natural to produce less oil in the future at the FPSO. Through the use of Hi-Sep we will decompress less gas on the topsides, allowing us to extend production plateau,” Borges told Upstream recently.

Petrobras and partners Shell, Total, China National Petroleum Corporation and China National Offshore Oil Corporation plan to invest $8.75 billion in the Mero field in the five-year period through to 2023.

That amount includes the contracting of the first two FPSOs, associated subsea equipment and the drilling of development wells.

Capital expenditure for the charter of the Mero-3 and Mero-4 FPSOs, subsea systems and other gear will be added to the company’s business plan at a later date.

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Petrobras lines up Mero-3 FPSO tender