By Brazil Stock Guide – Petrobras’ P-79 floating production, storage and offloading unit has reached the Buzios field in Brazil’s pre-salt Santos Basin, advancing the company’s production schedule at one of its flagship offshore assets.
The vessel was towed to location with crew already onboard, a strategy previously used on the P-78 unit to shorten the time needed to start production, Petrobras (PBR US; PETR4 BZ) said. According to the company, the approach allows complex systems to be brought into operational condition while commissioning continues uninterrupted.
“Putting the crew onboard during the voyage to the field allows complex FPSO systems to be made operational without interrupting the commissioning process, in addition to enabling team training. All of this speeds up the start of production. The next steps will be anchoring the unit and connecting it to the producing wells,” said Renata Baruzzi, Petrobras’ director of Engineering, Technology and Innovation.
The FPSO P-79 is the eighth unit operating at Buzios and one of 12 platforms planned for installation in the field. It joins the P-74, P-75, P-76, P-77, Almirante Barroso, Almirante Tamandaré and P-78 units, reinforcing Buzios’ status as Petrobras’ largest producing asset in ultra-deep waters.
The platform has a production capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil per day and can compress up to 7.2 million cubic meters of natural gas daily. In October 2025, Buzios exceeded 1 million barrels of oil per day in output, becoming Petrobras’ biggest ultra-deepwater production field.
Located about 180 kilometers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state, Buzios operates in water depths of up to 2,100 meters. P-79 is part of the Buzios 8 production development project, which includes 14 wells, eight producers and six WAG injectors.
The unit was built by SAME Netherlands BV, a joint venture between Italy’s Saipem SpA (SPM IM) and South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean Co. (042660 KS). The hull was constructed in Geoje, South Korea, where topside modules—built in China, Brazil, South Korea and Indonesia—were integrated and commissioned. The voyage from the shipyard to Brazil took about three months.
The Buzios consortium is operated by Petrobras and includes China’s CNOOC Ltd. (883 HK) and CNODC, as well as Brazil’s PPSA, which manages production-sharing contracts.
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