SBM Offshore fuels Petrobras’ oil production with more FPSOs offshore Brazil

(Bloomberg) – SBM Offshore NV has two massive oil vessels heading to Brazil and is waiting on Petrobras to offer tenders for similar units to help accelerate growth in what is already Latin America’s biggest producing country.

The 225,000 bpd Almirante Tamandare production vessel is on route and set to arrive in Brazil this year, and a similar unit is near completion at a Chinese shipyard and will arrive in 2025, Chief Executive Officer Oivind Tangen said in an interview.

SBM is also waiting for Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the state-controlled company is formally known, to re-launch a tender for two floating production storage and offloading vessels — or FPSOs — for an offshore project in the Sergipe-Alagoas basin, he said.

“For SBM, Brazil has always represented, I think in the last few decades, about 50% of activities, and that will stay like that,” Tangen said. “It’s a great time for us.”

Rapid growth offshore Brazil and Guyana is bringing more oil to the global market and complicating efforts by OPEC+ to constrain supplies to support prices. Bloomberg Intelligence expects Brazilian growth to reach as much as 200,000 bpd this year, thanks in part to SBM’s Sepetiba FPSO that started producing around the start of 2024.

SBM is also a major supplier to Exxon Mobil Corp. in Guyana and is waiting on TotalEnergies SE to make a final investment decision for an FPSO in Suriname. If SBM can become a successful partner with TotalEnergies in Suriname, it could open the door to other FPSOs in Namibia, where the French major has made offshore discoveries, he said.

“Having a chance to demonstrate our capabilities to Total, we hope that will give us also some insight and inroads into potential developments in Namibia,” he said.