Hand-over of First Modules for Petrobras' FPSO Vessel

ESSEN, Germany, November 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Brazilian oil extraction industry

The "Consórcio Tomé Ferrostaal" (CTF) named consortium of Rheinmetall International Engineering, a joint venture of Ferrostaal and Rheinmetall, and the Brazilian company Tomé Engenharia have handed over two modules for the first of a series of six vessels to an international consortium led by Petrobras. "CTF" was awarded in 2012 the modules order to equip six FPSO (Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading) vessels.

At the end of October, the Barge S. Tomé loaded with the Modules M8 and M10 was handed over to the integrator and successfully shipped away to its final integration destination in Angra dos Reis.

The total order is worth today approx. USD 950 million and is part of Petrobras's long-term investment programme for the Brazilian Government to open up the discovered "Tupi" offshore oil and gas field off the Southeast coast of Brazil, starting in 2016. The strategic goal of the Government is to increase the Brazilian daily oil production from 2 million barrels in 2014 to 4,2 million barrels by the end of the decade.

As part of the project the CTF consortium has built a new construction yard with its own workshops and production facilities at the port of Maceio located in the Northeast part of Brazil. Here, the CTF consortium is responsible for the construction of the modules including engineering, procurement, manufacturing and assembling of the modules for the approximately 300-metre-long ships. Presently, CTF has around 2,700 local workers at the site. Following delivery of the first FPSO modules, work on the following ships takes place in parallel on the site that covers over 500,000 square metres of land and water. The sixth and final module package is scheduled for delivery by 2016.

The special vessels offer tremendous advantages when it comes to offshore oil and gas production. Being mobile production and storage units, they can be deployed quickly and flexibly and eliminate the need for an elaborate local pipeline infrastructure to be constructed. The extracted oil is piped from the wells to the FPSO via underwater flowlines where it is processed and stored until being transferred to an oil tanker trough a flexible hose.

About Rheinmetall International Engineering: 

Launched in January 2014, Rheinmetall International Engineering is a 50:50 joint venture of Rheinmetall and Ferrostaal. Rheinmetall sees the new company as a means of accelerating the internationalization of its defence operations, especially in markets where it previously had only limited access, e.g. South America. At the same time, Rheinmetall is seeking to exploit synergies between state customers in the civilian oil and gas industry (previously served by Ferrostaal Industrieanlagen GmbH) and its core defence sector business, thus creating optimum market access. This should also enable expansion of Ferrostaal's traditional oil and gas operations to Asia and South America.  

Whether acting as general contractor or subcontractor, Rheinmetall International Engineering plans and implements turnkey industrial projects, providing single-source expertise. The company is headquartered in Geisenheim (Hessen) west of Frankfurt am Main, with total staff of around 170.  

Oliver Hoffmann
Head of Public Relations
Rheinmetall AG
Tel.: +49-(0)211-473-4748
oliver.hoffmann@rheinmetall.com

Clemens Pawlak
Head of Corporate Communications
Ferrostaal GmbH
Tel.: +49-201-818-26-66
clemens.pawlak@ferrostaal.com