The French oil company Total has decided to launch the first large-scale development of its Libra project in the deep ocean waters off Brazil, in the prolific Santos Basin, the company said Monday.
Total plans to dispatch a floating production storage and offloading unit to the Northwestern part of the pre-salt oil basin, where the company and its partners believe they can pump oil for less than $20 a barrel in technical costs.
That FPSO, called the Mero 1, would have an oil-production capacity of 150,000 barrels a day, and is expected to come online in 2021. Total believes the Libra consortium, which includes Petrobras and Shell, could add three more FPSOs in the region to produce some 600,000 barrels a day.
Total and its partners began pumping oil from a smaller FPSO last month, producing some 50,000 barrels a day, part of an effort to see how the field performs and to generate early revenue, it said. The project is about 112 miles from Brazil.
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