The floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) P‑78 departed Seatrium’s Benoi shipyard in Singapore on 13 July 2025, commencing its transit to the Búzios oil field in Brazil’s Santos Basin, according to the company's release.
The unit will be towed with a crew onboard, enabling continued commissioning and crew training, and is expected to accelerate production start-up by approximately two weeks.
The P‑78 has a processing capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil per day and can compress 7.2 million cubic metres of gas daily.
It is scheduled to deliver first oil in December 2025, increasing the field’s installed capacity by around 18%, to roughly 1.15 million barrels per day.
The vessel represents the seventh FPSO deployed in the deepwater Búzios field, which is located about 180 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in water depths up to 2,100 metres.
The P‑78 project includes 13 wells—six producers (two convertible to injectors), six WAG injectors and one gas injector—connected via rigid pipelines for production, injection and gas export, and flexible lines for service and gas-lift functions.
The P‑78 hull was constructed and integrated at shipyards in Yantai and Haiyang, China, and Ulsan, South Korea.
Topside modules were fabricated and integrated in Brazil (at Seatrium Angra dos Reis, formerly Brasfels), China and Singapore, followed by commissioning at the Singapore facility.
On 30 June, Sylvia Anjos, Petrobras’s director of Exploration and Production, and Renata Baruzzi, director of Engineering, Technology and Innovation, visited the vessel in Singapore and took part in the sail-away ceremony.
According to Petrobras, the co‑location of crew during tow will allow operational systems to remain online, streamline commissioning processes and facilitate crew training, thereby reducing the interval between final positioning and production start.
In May 2021, Petrobras awarded a US $2.3 billion engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the P‑78 FPSO to Singapore’s Keppel Offshore & Marine, in partnership with Hyundai Heavy Industries for hull fabrication.
Petrobras (Petróleo Brasileiro S.A.) is a Brazilian state-controlled multinational corporation in the oil and gas sector. Petrobras is the concessionaire and operator of the ultra-deepwater Búzios field in the Santos Basin.
Seatrium is a Singapore-listed public company specializing in offshore, marine and energy engineering solutions. Formed through the consolidation of Sembcorp Marine’s offshore arm and Keppel Offshore & Marine in late 2022, Seatrium provides EPC services for FPSOs, drilling rigs, floating platforms and specialised maritime vessels.