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RIO DE
JANEIRO AND SEOUL—Petroleo Brasileiro SA, owner of the
Western Hemisphere’s largest oil discovery in three
decades, plans to order 40 drilling ships and platforms
worth about $30 billion for delivery by 2017.
The
deep-water drilling ships and semisubmersible rigs will
explore for oil and gas in seas up to 3 kilometers deep,
Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based company is known,
said in a statement. The vessels cost about $750 million
each, said J. Michael Drickamer, an oilfield-service
company analyst at Morgan Keegan & Co. in
Memphis,
Tennessee.
Petrobras,
Brazil’s
state-controlled oil producer, plans to spend $112
billion through 2012 to help increase its oil and
natural-gas production and expand its refining and
distribution operations. The discovery of 5-billion to
8-billion-barrel Tupi field and the possibility of other
large fields nearby may require even more spending on
offshore equipment, according to chief financial officer
Almir Barbassa.
“Building all the ships
Brazil
wants to build will likely be a challenge,” said Judson
Bailey, a shipping and oil analyst with the Houston
office of Jefferies & Co., an investment bank, in an
interview. “There is a shortage of almost everything in
the offshore industry.”
Foreign
companies already in Brazil building ships include
Singapore’s Keppel Corp. and Sembcorp Marine Ltd.,
Galliano, Louisiana-based Edison Chouest Offshore, and
Oslo-based Aker Yards ASA. Brazilian companies include
construction companies Construtora Camargo Correa SA,
Construtora Queiroz Galvao SA, Grupo Wilson, Sons, and
Construtora Norberto Odebrecht SA.
Yards in
South Korea and Singapore, the world’s two biggest
offshore vessel-building nations, are also adding new
docks and extending the lengths of existing ones to work
through order backlogs that stretch to 2012.
Crude
oil has risen 95 percent in the past year and reached a
record $129.60 a barrel in New York Tuesday. Concerns
that oil supplies are lagging behind demand have boosted
prices and investors have also bought the commodity as a
hedge against the weakening dollar.
Daewoo
Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world’s
third-largest shipyard, submitted a bid to Petrobras to
supply drill vessels and semisubmersibles on April 10,
Lee Jae Ha, vice president of Daewoo Shipbuilding’s
offshore marketing, said from
Seoul.
“We
expect very good results from the bidding,” Lee said.
“Once they start drilling oil, there will be demand for
offshore production facilities, which Daewoo
Shipbuilding is also interested in.” He declined to say
when the contracts would be announced.
“We
expect Petrobras will have more work in deep water,”
Choo Chiau Beng, a senior executive officer at
Singapore-based Keppel, the world’s largest builder of
oil rigs, said on April 24. “There will be demand for
offshore equipment, both drilling and offshore
production, and as the biggest yard in Brazil, we will
definitely benefit.”
The plan
was announced a day after Petrobras and shipping and
construction industry officials met with Dilma Rousseff,
chief of staff to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva, to map out how the country can increase its
ability to build equipment needed by the oil industry in
Brazil.
While
preference will be given to Brazilian-built equipment,
foreign contractors and yards will also be allowed to
bid on the ships, the Petrobras statement said. The
Brazilian government has low-cost loans available for
Brazilian ship construction. (Bloomberg) |
