Chinese yard CIMC Raffles is nearing completion of the engineering, procurement and construction work for a floating production, storage and offloading vessel that will serve Petrobras’ giant Mero field in the Santos basin pre-salt province offshore Brazil.

In early May, the yard completed installation of the last batch of topsides modules onto the hull converted from the Bunga Kasturi Dua — a shuttle tanker owned by MISC’s affiliate AET.

However, CIMC Raffles is keeping tight-lipped on the delivery date of the Mero 3 floater (the Marechal Duque de Caxias FPSO), with sources suggesting that supply chain uncertainties following the Covid pandemic could have impacted the delivery schedule.

Upstream earlier reported that delivery of the Marechal Duque de Caxias FPSO was expected by early 2023, a timeline that has now passed.

The topsides-hull integration work was performed by Xinzhenfu 7, a heavy lift vessel owned and operated by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC).

China’s ZPMC said that module P50 weighs 4300 tonnes and that module P40 tops the scales at 4150 tonnes. The weight of both these modules is close to the lifting limit of the 5000-tonne capacity heavy lift vessel.

CIMC Raffles in mid-June 2021 cut first steel for the topsides modules, after signing a sub-contract with Malaysia’s offshore engineering contractor MISC early that year.

Under the deal, CIMC Raffles is responsible the FPSO’s hull conversion, topsides fabrication and integration.

The contractor said the converted floater will be 330 metres long, 70 metres wide and 30 metres high.

The Mero-3 FPSO will be able to process up to 180,000 barrels per day of oil and 12 million cubic metres per day of natural gas. It will be chartered for a 22.5-year period and is scheduled to start operations for Petrobras in 2024.

Petrobras operates Mero with a 40% stake and is partnered by European supermajors Shell and TotalEnergies on 20% each, with Chinese pair China National Petroleum Corporation and CNOOC Ltd having 10% apiece.

The Mero-3 project calls for the drilling of 15 development wells — eight oil producers and seven water and gas injectors — which will be linked to the FPSO through a rigid riser-based subsea structure.