U.S. Approves Floating Vessels For Oil Exploration in Gulf, Petrobras First To Use, in The U.S.!

This is quite interesting, Petrobras, PBR, the Brazilian giant, is drilling in the U.S. gulf, and was just approved for the first time to use floating vessels, as they do in Brazil, as opposed to using pipelines.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement's move that could help exploitation of deep water far away offshore fields.


The authorization came from  PBR can begin using a floating production, storage and offloading facilities, known as an FPSO, to produce oil and gas at its deepwater Chinook-Cascade project.

The production capacity will be 80,000 barrels of oil per day and 16 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Production is expected to begin in the near future.

FPSO vessels collect the oil and offload it unto tanker shuttles, there are no pipelines involved. According to the WSJ, this allows oil companies not only to keep pushing farther offshore, but also to move their expensive facilities if a storm approaches.

FPSOs is what PBR uses in Brazil and West Africa.

WSJ: "The Cascade-Chinook project is about 165 miles offshore Louisiana, in 8,200 feet of water. Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, owns 100% of the Cascade field and 66.67% of the Chinook field. French oil giant Total S.A. (TOT) owns 33.33% of the Chinook field. The FPSO vessel to be used in the project is owned and operated by Oslo-based BW Offshore (BWO.OS)".