Lapa South-West is an offshore oil field development project being developed in the Santos Basin off the coast of Brazil.

TotalEnergies is the operator of the oil field with 45% interest. Shell (30%) and Repsol Sinopec (25%) are the other partners of the project.

TotalEnergies launched the project by approving the Final Investment Decision (FID) in January 2023. The development of the oil field will entail a total investment of approximately $1bn.

Production is expected to commence in 2025, following which, the Lapa South-West project will increase the production capacity of the Lapa Field by 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

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Location and site details

The Lapa field is situated in the pre-salt Santos Basin within the BM-S-9A concession. The water depth in the region is around 2,150m.

The field is further divided into two sub-blocks- Lapa South-West and Lapa North-East.

Commercial production from North-East, situated 300km off the coast of the State of São Paulo, began in late 2016 using the Floating, Production, Storage, and Offloading (FPSO) vessel Cidade de Caraguatatuba MV27.

Lapa South-West development

The development of Lapa South-West Project will involve drilling of three wells.

These wells will be connected to the existing Lapa FPSO vessel, Cidade de Caraguatatuba MV27, located 12km away.

Cidade de Caraguatatuba MV27 is the 11th vessel (FPSO/FSO) that MODEC delivered to the Brazilian oil & gas sector. The vessel is capable of producing 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bopd). It has a storage capacity of 1.6 million bbls.

The development of Lapa South-West is part of TotalEnergies’ strategy to focus on low cost, low emissions assets.

Contractors Involved

In January 2023, Aker Solutions secured a contract worth between NOK500m ($49.2m) and NOK1.5bn ($150m) from TotalEnergies to deliver subsea production system, tools and all related Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (EPCI) interfaces for the Lapa South West field Construction.

Under the contract, Aker Solutions will supply a subsea production system with up to three subsea trees and control systems, tie-in, structures and subsea umbilicals. The company will also be in charge of delivering associated equipment and installation work.

Additionally, Aker Solutions will carry out EPCI of Subsea Umbilicals, Risers, Flowlines (SURF) and Subsea Production System (SPS) with Italian multinational oilfield services company Saipem.

For this Brazilian project, Saipem will utilise its yard Guarujá CTCO (Centro de Tecnologia e Construção Offshore) for logistics activities and Quad Joints Fabrication and some other manufacturing activities to maximise the use of local content.

According to Aker Solutions, the deliveries are expected to be made between the first quarter of 2024 and the fourth quarter of 2024.

TotalEnergies operations in Brazil

TotalEnergies is a multi-energy company with operations in more than 130 countries. The company has been active in Brazil for more than 40 years.

The company’s Brazilian operations span exploration and production of oil and gas, renewable energies, chemicals, lubricants, and distribution. It employs more than 3,000 people across its business segments in the country.

The exploration and production portfolio of the company includes 10 licences including four operated ones.

TotalEnergies’ production in the country averaged 103,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2022.

The company partnered with Petrobras in 2017 to undertake exploration and production, gas, renewables, and power activities. The collaboration enabled the companies to invest in Research and Development (R&D) including artificial intelligence to gain efficiencies.

In 2018, TotalEnergies forayed into the fuel distribution market of Brazil by acquiring the distribution activities of Grupo Zema.

It is also building its presence in the renewable sector through its subsidiary Total Eren. In October 2022, TotalEnergies teamed up with Brazilian renewable energy company Casa dos Ventos to jointly develop a 12GW renewable energy portfolio.