Mitsubishi Corp., Japan’s largest trading house, and Brazil’s state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA will build an $830 million ship to drill in deep seas for crude oil and natural gas.
The vessel would be capable of drilling in ocean depths of 3,000 meters (9,843 feet), Mitsubishi said in a statement on its Web site. A South Korean shipbuilder has been chosen to build the vessel, a Mitsubishi spokesman said, declining to name it.
Oil and gas explorers, having already tapped shallow-water reserves, are searching for the fuel in deep-sea wells, increasing the need for drilling vessels that can reach deposits far below the ocean.
A joint venture between Mitsubishi and Petrobras, as Brazil’s biggest oil company is known, will own and operate the vessel, to be completed in June 2010. Petrobras will use the new ship at its deep-sea oil and gas reserves at home and abroad, Mitsubishi said in the statement.
Japan’s government in 2005 built the 60 billion yen ($656 million) deep-sea drilling ship named “Chikyu,” meaning the earth, to study the geological structure under the sea bed. Chikyu is able to drill 7,000 meters below the ocean floor in depths of 2,500 meters.
Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co. built the body of the Chikyu while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. made drilling tools.