The Peregrino field, located 85 kilometers off the coast of Brazil, is estimated to hold about 2.3 billion barrels of heavy oil. The lead operator is the Norwegian company Statoil, with China’s Sinochem holding a 40% stake.
The field has been developed using an FSPO called the Maersk Peregrino, a vessel that was built in Singapore by marine engineer Keppel using the hull of a very large crude carrier called the Maersk Nova. The $1 billion conversion began in 2008 and was completed three years later after 15 million man-hours of work carried out by engineers of 25 nationalities, mostly based in Denmark, Norway, India, Singapore and the US.
ABB’s contribution to the project was to act as the main automation and electrical contractor. This involved the design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of the electrical, instrumentation and automation technology for the FPSO and its associated subsea equipment, as well as the telecommunication and safety systems, and the training simulators.
The power solution required a vast array of low and medium-voltage products and system. These distribute up to 72MW of power throughout the FPSO, the two wellhead platforms that supply it and the electric pumps in the production wells that are needed to lift the oil to the surface.
The peculiar challenges of producing a high viscosity reservoir include the re-injection of an immense volume of produced water combined with precise temperature management in order to keep the oil in a liquid state at all times.
The Peregrino scheme was named one of the top five offshore projects for 2011 by Offshore magazine for the “best use of innovation in production methods”.