(Source: PRNewswire)
VILA VELHA, Brazil, Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Shell officially celebrates first oil from Parque das Conchas with a ceremony and concert tonight at the Naval Academy in Vila Velha. Paulo Hartung, Governor of Espirito Santo, will attend the festivities along with Guilherme Dias, his Development Secretary. They will be joined by Marvin Odum, Director for Shell Upstream Americas, Vasco Dias, Chairman of Shell Brasil Ltda., and Stephen Whyte, Vice-President of Upstream Shell Brazil. Singer Gilberto Gil will entertain.
Shell is the first private company to produce oil in the Campos Basin. Production flowed July 12 from the multi-field Parque das Conchas (former BC-10) project located 110 kilometers off Brazil's southeast coast, where heavy oil resources lie beneath waters nearly two kilometers deep.
"We have overcome several challenges to make Parque das Conchas economically viable. The project holds special meaning for Shell as the first we have operated completely in Brazil, from first exploration up to today's production," said Vasco Dias.
The project and future development in Brazil remain strategic for Shell. "Oil and gas continue to play a major part in meeting the world's growing energy demands, and bringing Parque das Conchas production on stream is an important milestone for Brazilian deep waters," said Odum. "This also reinforces our presence in the country with a project that has created jobs and encouraged investments."
The Parque das Conchas development plan has two phases and will draw initial production from three fields: Abalone, Ostra and Argonauta B-West. The first phase, now on-stream, involves nine producing wells and one gas injector well. The second phase, now in planning, will focus on the Argonauta O-North field.
Shell employed a host of new and advanced technologies to meet the project's many challenges, including water depth and oil viscosity. Electric pumps of 1,500 horsepower drive the oil 1,800 meters up to the surface for processing on the floating, production, storage, and offloading vessel (FPSO), Espirito Santo.
The equipment-laden vessel can process 100 thousand barrels of oil and 50 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and store nearly 1.5 million barrels of oil for shipment to shore by transport tankers.
Technology highlights: -- Parque das Conchas is the first full-field development using subsea oil and gas separation and subsea pumping. -- The water depth required weight reduction and the development of buoyant steel risers - flexible steel pipes several kilometers long that anchor the FPSO in place. -- The field geology with its scattered formations demanded extended horizontal drilling for better production.
