Japanese Quartet Moves Ahead with Marlim FPSO

Japanese companies MODEC, Mitsui, MOL, and Marubeni will jointly invest in the Petrobras-bound Marlim FPSO.

MODEC in October 2019 received a letter of intent from Petrobras for the supply, charter, and operations of the Marlim-1 FPSO.

Now Mitsui, MOL, and Marubeni have agreed to invest in Marlim1 MV33 B.V. ("MV33"), a Dutch company established by MODEC, to manage the whole project.

Under the agreement signed on Thursday, January 30, the ownership in the company will be spread as follows: MODEC, Inc.:32.5%, Mitsui & Co., Ltd.:32.5%, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.:20.0%, and Marubeni Corporation:15.0%.

The FPSO, to be named Anita Garibaldi MV 33, will be chartered for 25 years and deployed in the Marlim field in the Campos Basin.

The field is located approximately 150 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro, on the southeast coast of Brazil. FPSO will be moored in approximately 670 meters of water depth.

The FPSO will be capable of processing 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day, 7 million standard cubic meter of gas per day, 390,000 barrels of water injection per day and will have a minimum storage capacity of 1 million barrels of crude oil. First oil production is planned for 2022.

This is the 16th FPSO/FSO vessel which MODEC will provide in Brazil, as well as MODEC’s 6th vessel in the Campos Basin since the company started to operate in the region in 2003.

Worth noting, MODEC on Thursday also secured a contract to supply an FPSO for Equinor in Brazil for the Bacalhau field. The FPSO will be the largest FPSO ever delivered to Brazil. It will have a topside designed to produce up to 220,000 barrels of crude oil per day, produce and inject up to 530 million standard cubic feet of associated gas per day and inject up to 200,000 barrels of seawater per day. Its minimum storage capacity of crude oil will be 2,000,000 barrels.