Brazil's Petrobras and Seatrium launched on Thursday two production vessels that will boost oil output at the pre-salt Buzios field, the country's largest, by 450,000 barrels per day next year.
The new rigs will enable Brazil to boost exports further to fulfil global demand as refiners grapple with the loss of Middle East supply due to the US-Iran war.
The floating production, storage and offloading vessels, P-80 and P-82, are expected to leave Singapore for Brazil in September and early October, respectively, a Seatrium representative told reporters.
The voyage will take about 70 days, and both vessels are expected to begin production in the first half of 2026, Seatrium and Petrobras said. Each FPSO is designed to produce up to 225,000 barrels of oil and 12 million cubic metres of gas daily.
"Búzios is Brazil's largest field in terms of reserves and production and has already surpassed the milestone of 1.2 million barrels per day," Petrobras CEO Magda Chambriard said.
Petrobras holds a near 90 per cent stake in the field, and operates the field with Chinese partners CNOOC and CNPC.
Chambriard told Reuters that Buzios crude would be sold mainly to customers in the Asia-Pacific region. "Demand from South Korea and Japan is increasing, while China has been buying our oil for a long time," she said. "India, for example, has asked us to sell as much as possible."
Brazil's oil production rose 19.1 per cent on-year in June to a record high of 4.5 million bpd, oil regulator ANP said.
Its crude exports have averaged 2.5 million bpd so far this year, up sharply from 2.1 million bpd in 2025 and 1.7 million bpd in 2024, Kpler data showed. China was the largest destination, receiving about 1.1 million bpd so far this year.
(Reporting by Siyi Liu in Singapore; Editing by Louise Heavens)