SBM Offshore Announces First Oil On FPSO Espirito Santo

SBM Offshore N.V. (SBM Offshore) announced that the FPSO Espirito Santo, located in the BC-10 deep water field development in the Campos basin, has achieved first oil production on July 13, 2009. The FPSO is chartered by the BC-10 joint venture, which is operated by Royal Dutch Shell plc with ONGC Campos Ltda. and Petroleo Brasilieiro S.A. (Petrobras) as co-venturers, from SBM Offshore in joint venture with MISC Berhad (MISC), under a fifteen year lease and operate contract.

The FPSO is moored in 1,789 meters of water depth and is designed to process 100,000 barrels of oil per day with gravity ranging from 16º API to 42º API, and to treat up to 45 million standard cubic feet per day of gas (MMSCFD) for injection or export. All project activities including engineering, procurement, project management, construction supervision and commissioning were performed using in-house personnel from the SBM Offshore Group. SBM Offshore in joint venture with MISC will also operate the unit offshore Brazil.

The lease and operate contract was signed in November 2006, the converted FPSO arrived in Brazil in December 2008 and first oil production was achieved less than two weeks after successful hook-up of the last steel catenary riser.

Tony Mace, chief executive officer of SBM Offshore: “Last month has been a very intensive period for the Company in which we have seen the conclusion of three years of hard work with the completion and start up of three major floating production units representing a design process capacity of 260,000 barrels of oil per day. Production commenced on the FPSO Espirito Santo in Brazil and on the Thunder Hawk Semi in the Gulf of Mexico, which are both substantial assets in SBM Offshore’s lease fleet of seventeen units. In the turnkey segment we completed delivery and commenced production on the FPSO Frade in Brazil and will operate that unit for another three years as well.”