The Italian pipelay contractor dropped the 2.3-kilometre steel pipe after rigging used to manoeuvre the line into position on a floating oil platform at the field failed as the work was being carried out on 16 March, sources with knowledge of the incident told Reuters.
As a result, the high-grade metal-alloy tubes worth around $2 million plunged about 1800 metres to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, leaving the pipe a total, crumpled loss, they said.
However, the cost of the accident is likely to be much higher than the value of the lost pipe, sources said, as it will delay by about a month efforts to ramp up field production and lead to losses of tens of millions of dollars in oil output, salaries and equipment.
It comes at a time when Petrobras can least afford it as the company suffers falling oil and gas production that is starving it of revenue and driving up debt, while it is struggling to bring online new fields to offset the output drop.
The Roncador accident will put off work until later this month at the earliest as Petrobras and Saipem design a remedial plan, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
Petrobras said though the accident would not affect efforts to raise output at Roncador.
New pipe will be supplied to Saipem from Petrobras’ existing stock and connection work will restart this month, the company added. It would otherwise take about six months to order and manufacture a replacement pipe.
Saipem had not responded to Upstream’s request for comment at the time of publication.
The Italian player earlier won the contract for engineering, procurement, transportation and offshore installation of 25 kilometres of flowlines and of 16 steel catenary risers to connect subsea wellheads to the field’s recently installed P-55 platform.
The lost pipe was to have connected the semi-submersible facility to an oil pipeline on the seabed to facilitate full production from the field.
Full start-up of the platform, designed to produce another 180,000 barrels per day at a field that produced 255,000 bpd in February, was already months behind schedule when the pipe was lost.
P-55 has produced some oil since the turn of the year via a provisional hook-up to a floating tanker, Petrobras said in a note late Thursday.
The P-58 and P-61 platforms in the nearby Parque das Baleias and Papa Terra fields are also behind schedule.
In total, two of the seven production systems scheduled for start-up last year are still being connected. The P-58 began production on 17 March.
Meanwhile, the P-62 production ship, which arrived at Roncador in January, suffered a fire in a diesel electricity generator. Brazil’s Labour Ministry has barred the ship from producing oil until safety issues are resolved.
Petrobras saw production fall again in February from a year earlier, extending more than five years of stagnant output.
Despite a $221 billion five-year investment plan, the company has had little success transforming giant new offshore discoveries into increased output.
Petrobras said in February it plans to boost output in Brazil by between 6.5% and 8.5% to as much as 2.07 million bpd in 2014. That would be its first year-on-year gain since 2011.
With production from older fields falling, delays with new fields could put that goal at risk. Already the world’s most indebted and least profitable major oil company, Petrobras will find it harder to finance its investment plans and pay returns to investors without higher output.
“The series of management and engineering problems the company faces is flabbergasting,” said Cleveland Jones, a professor and researcher with Brazil’s National Petroleum & Gas Institute at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.
“This may have been an unfortunate accident, but it comes as the company’s organisational problems are becoming more evident.”
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