Petrobras Will Start Cachalote

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-run oil producer, will start output at the Cachalote offshore field in Brazil this quarter with a 100,000-barrel-a- day vessel upgraded by SBM Offshore NV.

SBM, the world’s largest supplier of floating oil platforms, overhauled the Capixaba production, storage and offloading ship for the project, Darko Kulas, a spokesman for Schiedam, Netherlands-based company, said in an e-mailed response to questions. The vessel is in Brazil, he said.


Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based company is known, is boosting its fleet of marine-drilling rigs as it seeks to tap Brazil’s pre-salt offshore reserves and more than double oil output to 5.7 million barrels a day by 2020. The pre-salt deposits include Tupi, the largest oil find in the America’s since Mexico’s Cantarell in 1976.

Cachalote is in the Campos Basin off Rio de Janeiro’s coast, near the Jubarte and Baleia Franca fields.

A Petrobras spokesman, who can’t be named under company policy, was unable to provide a production target for the field or a start date for production.