Petrobras awards tanker contract to Jurong shipyard

17-06-02 Brazil's federal energy company Petrobras ignored domestic pressure and awarded Singapore's Jurong shipyard the $ 244 mm contract to convert the Felipe Camarao tanker into a floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for the Albacora Leste field in the Campos basin, Petrobras said.
Jurong's offer beat out the second-placed offer of the Fels Setal/Technip-Coflexip consortium, which came out 6 %, or $ 14 mm, more expensive. The decision is likely to outrage the local Brazilian oil industry, which secured considerable political support to back the Fels/Technip consortium as it would have conducted far more of the work in Brazilian shipyards.

Jurong has maintained that it will conduct the work in its Singapore shipyards, despite its association with the Maua and Eisa shipyards in Rio de Janeiro. Petrobras defended itself saying 45 % of the $ 1.5 bn invested in Albacora Leste, including wells and submarine equipment installations, will be spent within Brazil. Petrobras' partner isSpain's Repsol-YPF, which owns a 10 % stake in Albacora Leste.
Petrobras began the search for a contractor in 2001, but the best offer it received at the time -- also from Jurong -- was $ 347 mm, some $ 100 mm more expensive than the final price. The total cost of P-50 is $ 496 mm, including the $ 244 mm conversion contract and $ 252 mm for topside modules.

Petrobras awarded contracts for the gas compression, power generation, oil & gas, and separation and treatment modules between September and December 2001. The fourth contract for the electrical and non-electrical utilities was awarded in June 2002. Work on all four modules is now in progress.
P-50 is scheduled to begin production at the Albacora Leste field in the Campos basin in July 2004, with capacity to process 180,00 bpd and 6 mm cfpd of natural gas.