Petrobras FPSO Led by Mangalorean Captain Arul Aranha Strikes First Oil
 
Daijiworld Media Network—Brazil 
 
Brazil, Oct 30: The largest FPSO (oil and gas floating production, storage, and offloading system) in  the  world, Cidade Angra dos Reis run by Petrobras,  which struck its  first  oil  on Thursday  October 28 from a depth of 4.3 km,  is  commanded by Mangalorean Captain Arul Aranha.

Aranha, superintendent of the prestigious project, hails from Vas Lane, Mangalore, and is the son of Amie Aranha and late Ladislaus B Aranha. He is married to Beryl Aranha who lives on Balmatta New Road.

Capt Aranha has been in the this industry for 25 years. He passed out in 1977 from St Aloysius College, Mangalore.

Capt Arul Aranha with his wife Beryl and children

The FPSO unit is anchored in the Santos Basin in Tipi – main field of pre-salt area, at a depth water of 2200 m and is capable of storing 1 mm bbls, to produce 100,000 bopd of oil and 5,000,000 bd sm3 of gas. It is owned by Modec, Tokyo/Modec, Houston and has been hired by Petrobras for 20 years. It was constructed in Dalian,China and transported to its current location over a 46-day period under the leadership of Capt Aranha.

The facility was inaugurated by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and has a team of 140 people from about 14 different countries all over the world. Two other Indians in the team include marine superintendent Captain P V Rajagopalan and offshore oil installation manager Sanjay Mehwala.
 

Petrobras team with President Lula da Silva

The FPSO is initially connected to the RJS-660 well, which will undergo technical testing until the Declaration of Commerciality (DC) is made for the field, slated for late December, when the process of interconnecting it to other producing wells will be completed and the Tupi area will enter the production development phase.
 
It is installed in an area near the FPSO Cidade de São Vicente, which has been performing the extended well test (TLD) for Tupi since May last year and has already produced about seven million barrels of oil. The pilot system, whose activities will begin after the DC, will complement the technical data collected by the TLD with critical information about the reservoir and the production.

These data are essential to design the future units that will operate in the pre-salt. It will also contribute both to improve the well construction and subsea production collection projects, and to assess how different recovery methods (oil extraction) perform in the reservoir.
 
The unit will produce light, high commercial value oil and will kick-off the final Tupi production system, which will collect basic technical information for the development of large accumulations of oil discovered in recent years in that sedimentary basin.