South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean recently delivered a new floating production storage and offloading unit (FPSO) to Brazilian state-owned energy company Petrobras.
P-79 belongs to the same series as P-78, an FPSO that was delivered to Petrobras earlier this year following completion by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Seatrium of Singapore. It will be deployed at the Buzios field in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin.
The newer FPSO also boasts a storage capacity of two million barrels of oil and a production capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil per day, in addition to being able to compress 7.2 million cubic metres of gas daily.
The construction of P-79 had been beset by an accident that killed one person and injured two others earlier this year.
While P-79 was still under construction at Hanwha Ocean's Geoje facilities on September 3, a platform that was being used for load tests of a winch to be installed on the FPSO buckled under intense weight, causing it to collapse and fall into the water along with the three people standing on it.
One adult male was found unconscious and subsequently pronounced dead in hospital while the other two suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
The deceased was later identified as a Petrobras employee.
Hanwha Ocean had earlier come under scrutiny from the South Korea Ministry of Employment and Labour as well as other local authorities after a number of accidents at its facilities resulted in seven deaths between January and September 2024.
Prior to the September 3 mishap, the most recent fatal accident involving the company occurred on September 9, 2024, when an outsourced labourer died of injuries he suffered after he fell from a height of 30 metres at a floating dock where a containership was being built.
