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Petrobras selects Rolls-Royce gas turbines for new Brazilian gas project

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

Brazilian oil and gas company, Petrobras, is due to receive three Rolls-Royce RB211-G62 electrical generating sets for its new Caraguatatuba gas receiving and treatment station in the fourth quarter of this year.

Power from the 29 MW units will be used to drive electric motor driven gas compressors to move gas received from the Mexilhão offshore field, located in the Santos Basin, into the São Paulo State gas network.

The offshore platform in the Mexilhão field will also use Rolls-Royce equipment. Three 5.3 MW generating sets, powered by the Rolls-Royce 501 engine, have been ordered from the UK gas turbine packager, Centrax, to meet the platform’s electrical requirements.

The Mexilhão field, in which Petrobras is investing US$ 2 billion, is located about 160 kilometres offshore in a water depth of 500 metres.

The project is included in the Brazilian federal government’s list of priority programmes, and is of strategic importance to Brazil which needs to increase production of natural gas for domestic consumption and to alleviate the reliance on imported gas.

Tom Curley, President of the Rolls-Royce energy business said: ‘This latest order for the RB211 reflects the outstanding performance of the RB211s already being utilised by Petrobras.’

The three new RB211 generating sets, ordered in 2007, will be packaged at the Rolls-Royce facility in Mount Vernon, Ohio, USA.

The Mexilhão 1 platform, to be installed in the Santos Basin, will be the largest offshore metallic structure ever erected in Brazilian waters.
It will have a production and treatment capacity of approximately 15 million cubic meters of gas per day, in addition to 3,200 m3 of condensate daily. The production will be directed to the consumer markets in the South and Southeast of Brazil.
The platform will be interlinked to a 145-kilometer-long gas pipeline, which will transport production to a gas-processing unit in Caraguatatuba, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo.
Petrobras first ordered the RB211 for its offshore facilities in January 2001 when contracts were received for eight power generation units for the P-43 Barracuda and P-48 Caratinga Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels. In December 2003, Rolls-Royce was awarded orders for four additional RB211 power generation packages for the P-52 FPU.
In May and June 2004, further orders were placed for seven RB211 genset packages, for the P-51 Marlim Sul FPU, and for a fixed repumping platform, PRA-1.
In 2005, four Rolls-Royce RB211-powered generating sets were ordered by Charter Development LLC-CDC to be installed in the P-53 Marlin Leste Floating Production Unit (FPU)
In March this year Rolls-Royce announced another order from Petrobras, for an additional four gas turbine power generation packages valued at $73 million for use on the P-56 semi-submersible platform. This brings the number of Rolls-Royce gas turbine generator sets for Petrobras offshore projects to 27 since 2001, with a total value of more than $300 million.
Rolls-Royce has a fleet of over 550 industrial gas turbines operating offshore in 32 countries. The first units entered service offshore Venezuela in 1969, offshore USA in 1970 and the North Sea in 1972.
Total operating hours of Rolls-Royce industrial gas turbines worldwide is over 160 million.

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