RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Brazil's state-run oilcompany, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, will sign a contractto build and lease a floating production ship for its giantLibra offshore project this month, company Chief Executive Mariadas Gracas Foster said on Thursday.
The contract will be the first for a floating production,storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, to be used in the giantLibra prospect northeast of Rio de Janeiro that Petrobras, asthe company is known, won in an auction with Anglo-Dutch, Frenchand Chinese partners late last year.
Libra will be the first area developed under new productionsharing rules and will direct about 42 percent of its output tothe Brazilian government for it to sell on its own account.
Petrobras owns 40 percent of the project with Anglo-DutchShell Plc and France's Total SA each owning20 percent and Chinese state oil companies CNOOC Ltd and China National Petroleum Corp. each owning 10percent.
Foster, who spoke at the close of the Rio Oil & GasConference, said Petrobras had reduced the time required toconstruct its FPSOs in Brazil to an average of 42 weeks from 60weeks in 2005. The world average, she said, was 39 weeks.
FPSOs are converted oil tankers that process and store oilproduced from deep-water offshore fields until another tankertakes off its cargo at sea.
The ships reduce the need for expensive and technicallychallenging deep-water pipelines to move oil to shore. Libra isbelieved to hold 8 billion to 12 billion barrels of oil, enoughto cover the needs of the United States, the world's largest oilconsumer, for 14 to 21 months. (Reporting by Jeb Blount and Marta Nogueira; Editing by KenWills)
