Japanese FPSO specialist MODEC has been awarded the contract for the delivery of an FPSO unit for Equinor's Bacalhau development.

The EPCI contract award follows the final investment decision for the development of the field, announced by Equinor and its partners Tuesday. The development of the field located in the Santos Basin will cost around $8 billion.

As previously reported, more than a year ago, Equinor and Modec signed a deal for the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) and pre-investment of the FPSO.

MODEC now has a contract in hand for Engineering, Procurement, Construction, and Installation (EPCI) for the FPSO.

The Japanese company will also provide Equinor with operations and maintenance service of the FPSO for the first year from its first oil production, after which Equinor plans to operate the FPSO until the end of the license period in 2053. First oil production is planned for 2024.

The FPSO will be deployed at the Bacalhau field in the BM-S-8 and Carcará North blocks located in the giant “pre-salt” region of the Santos Basin some 185 kilometers off the coast of the municipality of Ilhabela/SP, in the state of São Paulo. Equinor’s field partners are ExxonMobil (40%), Petrogal Brasil (20%) and Pre-sal Petroleo SA (PPSA).

The FPSO vessel will be permanently moored at a water depth of approximately 2,050 meters by a spread mooring system to be supplied by MODEC group company, SOFEC, Inc.

The FPSO will be one of the largest FPSO ever delivered to Brazil. It will have a large topside designed to produce up to 220,000 barrels of crude oil per day, produce and inject up to 530 million standard cubic feet of associated gas per day and inject up to 200,000 barrels of seawater per day. Its minimum storage capacity of crude oil will be 2,000,000 barrels. 

According to MODEC, the project will use a Combined Cycle Power Generation System as a solution to help reduce CO2 emission of the facility on the operational phase.

The FPSO will be the first application of MODEC's “M350 Hull”, a next-generation newly built hull for FPSOs, full double-hull design, which has been developed to accommodate larger topside and larger storage capacity than conventional VLCC tankers, with a longer design service life.

The FPSO will be the 17th FPSO/FSO vessel delivered by MODEC in Brazil, the 9th FPSO in the pre-salt region, as well as MODEC’s first with Equinor.