Baker Hughes has been awarded a subsea oilfield equipment contract from Petrobras as part of the Marlim and Voador field revitalisation plan in the Campos Basin, offshore Brazil.
The contract includes several key technologies from Baker Hughes’ Subsea Connect portfolio and will provide Petrobras with a connected suite of solutions to help drive efficiencies, reduce costs and improve execution speed.
Baker Hughes will supply up to five subsea production and injection manifold systems, which benefit from a lightweight and compact design for installation from smaller vessels and include integrated hydraulic connection systems and retrievable choke modules to realise life of field cost savings. The manifold systems will also include Baker Hughes’ field proven vertical mechanical clamp connection system which increases installation efficiencies.
In addition to the manifold systems, Baker Hughes will provide 32 modular, structured, subsea control modules (called Modpods) which are powered by SemStar5 technology, manufactured in the company’s Nailsea facility in Bristol, UK. The modules have extensive field deployment history with a mean time between failures of more than 150 years.
Neil Saunders, Executive Vice President of Oilfield Equipment at Baker Hughes, commented, “This order is an important example of how Subsea Connect is bringing structured technology to improve execution certainty. We are able to deliver world-class subsea solutions with a breadth of expertise and skills to bring flexibility, scalability and versatility to complex projects. We are proud to partner with Petrobras on the revitalisation of Marlim and Voador and offer our latest subsea technologies for Brazil.”
The contract will include a global team of experts delivering the subsea production and injection manifold systems, subsea control modules, subsea connection systems and field installation support. The manifold systems will be fabricated, tested and assembled in Baker Hughes’ Centre of Excellence facility in Jandira, Brazil.
Adyr Tourinho, Vice President of Brazil and Oilfield Equipment for Latin America at Baker Hughes, said, “This contract is a culmination of our multi-year engagement with Petrobras and builds on our history supplying subsea production systems to deepwater projects in Brazil. Our lightweight, compact technology is engineered to combat the most demanding conditions found in today’s deepwater environments.”
A bright future ahead
Baker Hughes’ recent Q1 2021 results show that the company had faced a challenging year, suffering year on year declines in areas such as orders and revenue. However this is a squeeze being felt unanimously across the energy industry and Lorenzo Simonelli, Chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes, noted that he envisioned a bright future for the company, which will no doubt be aided by the recent agreements with Petrobras and other major players such as Saudi Aramco.
Simonelli commented, “We are pleased with our first quarter results as we generated strong free cash flow, continued to drive forward our cost-out efforts, and took further meaningful steps in the execution of our strategy. During the quarter, TPS delivered solid orders and operating income while OFS continued to execute cost-out programmes to help drive another strong quarter of margin performance. We also advanced our position in the energy transition, investing in strategic areas for growth and entering important partnerships to advance new energy frontiers including hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage.”
“As we look ahead to the rest of 2021, we remain cautiously optimistic that the global economy and oil demand will recover from the impact of the global pandemic. We expect spending and activity levels to gain momentum through the year as the macro environment improves, likely setting up the industry for stronger growth in 2022.”
