Almost 10 years ago, Brazil experience its own offshore tragedy when the P-36 floating production facility exploded and sank killing 11 workers (sadly, the same number of lives that were lost on the Deepwater Horizon). Brazil has recovered to become a world leader in deep water production and technology. Ten years from now, will the US still be mired in Macondo litigation, reforms, and access and permitting snarls; or will we once again be a leader in deep water innovation and production?
Malcolm Sharples sent 3 excellent articles which have been translated from Portugese. Links to the articles and excerpts are posted below:
Subsea Cities
The legend of Atlantis, the Lost City, was widely portrayed in books, drawings and film in the twentieth century. In the real world in the XXI century, Petrobras is preparing to create real cities underwater, which will mark a new phase in the exploration and production of oil at great depths, in the pre-salt. On the seabed, more than 2000 meters under the surface, they will install the major equipment that now operate on the platforms, allowing them to become smaller, lighter and, most importantly, cheaper. The entire system will have a high degree of automation, with part of the operation controlled remotely.
The underwater cities of Petrobras will be inhabited by machines, equipment and giant robots tasked to inspect production systems to extract millions of barrels of oil. Sounds like science fiction, but it is one of the most important aspects of research carried out by Petrobras in partnership with universities and suppliers. “Our goal in ten years is to not depend on platforms,” said Carlos Tadeu Fraga, executive manager of Petrobras Research Center (Cenpes). Whether this is possible, only time will tell. He tells of an ambitious objective which is to put on the seabed in a horizon of ten years, the processing plants, compression systems, separation equipment (oil, gas, water and sand) and even energy generation modules needed to make everything work.
The Offshore Industry’s Silicon Valley
Petrobras Research Center
If California has its Silicon Valley, a region that brings together high-tech companies, Rio moves to create a Pre-Salt Valley or Valley Energy. This hub, which brings together the experts of oil, is under development in the technology park at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), in Fundão Island, where Petrobras inaugurated the new building, expanding its research center. There are technologies being studied for electromagnetic characterization of deep reservoirs, nuclear magnetic resonance and special equipment to drill the pre-salt in a safe and fast.
Brazil will be the technological center of oil and gas in the next decade. Petrobras has a contractual obligation with the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) to invest at least 1% of gross revenue of fields to pay in special participation in R & D projects.
3-D Monitoring 
Among the developments currently underway are two software systems: Environ, where you can view details of equipment platforms in 3D; and integrated exploration and production system (Siviep), which shows the fields and geological formations below the seabed. And both should have the first versions available for use in July 2011.
