Petrobras may end local content in Mero Risers bidding

Petrobras is promoting, in parallel, a new tender for contracting the umbilicals, only this time without a minimum nationalization index, which means that the risers are all imported

Petrobras, leader and operator of the Libra consortium, is promoting, along with the original bid, another for the supply of steel lines (STU, its acronym in English) for the Mero field with no minimum requirement of local content.
It is worth remembering that the bidding in progress foresees 40% of nationalization and that initially the index was 55% but ended up being reduced.

This means that the 59,350 km of umbilicals can be fully imported. The tender also provides for the provision of monitoring and testing services.
According to the announcement, the contract will be for two years and the delivery of the equipment will be made through the Port of Açu, in São João da Barra (RJ), or at the Vitória Terminal (Bavit), in Espírito Santo.

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Unprecedentedness of the equipment

As this is the first time that Petrobras has used the STU in its projects, since it normally used thermoplastic umbilicals, the process will involve suppliers without the qualification of the technology with the state-owned company, which could lead to future problems in relation to the bidding process.

Suppliers respond that since the qualification of umbilicals is an expensive process and given the high degree of uncertainty in the future use of the equipment in new projects, it was difficult to justify the investment in their qualification.

What is practiced in the market is, with the requirement of qualification by the operators, the manufacturers are authorized to include it in the price of the project and to do it during the execution of the contract.
According to Petrobras, STU umbilicals have already been used in its projects and the technology is widely used in the market.

The bidding should have as candidates the companies: Aker Solutions, Prysmian, TechnipFMC, Oceaneering, MfX and Nexans and currently in the country, only MxF, Prysmian and Oceaneering have umbilical factories, respectively in Salvador (BA), Vila Velha (ES) and in Niterói (RJ).
The date for submission of proposals was scheduled for last Thursday (2/5), but was postponed to today, Monday (06/5).

The Libra consortium is formed by Petrobras, which is the operator, with 40%, Shell (20%), Total (20%), CNOOC (10%) and CNPC (10%) and the first oil in the area is scheduled for 2021.
In addition to this tender for umbilicals, Petrobras also has others in progress, such as risers for the Roncador fields and for the Long Duration Test (EWT) at Forno and Atapu.

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