How Brava Energia Turned Brazil’s Atlanta Deepwater Heavy-Oil Field Into a Full-Scale FPSO Development

 

Some oil fields show a lot of promise—but even more in the way of challenges. An example is the Atlanta field in block BS-4 offshore Brazil.

This post-salt field holds estimated 2P reserves of 172 million BOE. That oil? It’s heavy, extremely viscous, and highly acidic, in an unconsolidated reservoir in 1550 m water depth.

Shell discovered heavy oil at Atlanta in 2001, pronounced it commercial in 2006, and later exited the concession without developing it. In 2012, a consortium led by the former Brazilian independent OGX—alongside a partner that would later become known as Enauta and eventually Brava Energia—scooped up the concession in 2012 (Fig. 1).

Source: OTC 35600.

But the following year, OGX, which later became known as Dommo Energia, declared bankruptcy.