Petrobras started oil production from the P-78 FPSO at the Búzios field in the pre-salt Santos Basin on Wednesday, 31 December. The Búzios 6 development using P-78 is designed to produce 180,000 barrels of oil per day and 7.2 million m³ of gas per day.
The company said the start-up lifts the field’s total installed production capacity to about 1.15 million barrels of oil per day. It also enables gas to be sent to shore via a tie-in to the ROTA 3 pipeline, which Petrobras said could expand Brazil’s gas supply by up to 3 million m³ per day.
Petrobras president Magda Chambriard said the first oil from P-78 supports the company’s main objective for 2026 of raising oil and gas output. She added that Petrobras plans to produce 2.5 million barrels of oil per day during the year, with a large share expected from Búzios, while also increasing natural gas availability for the domestic market.
P-78 is presented as the first unit in a new proprietary FPSO design family. Petrobras said the PBRef (Basic Reference Project) consolidated lessons from earlier pre-salt units to strengthen operational safety and reliability. Contracting, construction and assembly were also updated under the FORTALECE Program (PROFORT), which set the contractual framework and quality and efficiency requirements for shipyards involved, beyond the field’s local content baseline. The contract includes a minimum 25% local content commitment, and Petrobras said 10 of 23 topside modules were built at BrasFELS in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro.
On emissions and efficiency, Petrobras highlighted a system that recovers exhaust gases, the use of variable-speed drives on pumps and compressors, and heat integration across hot and cold processing streams. The development comprises 13 wells—six producers and seven injectors—using intelligent completion systems. The unit is connected through rigid lines for gas production, injection and export, and flexible service lines, using new pipeline-to-FPSO attachment technologies cited by the company.
P-78 measures 345 m in length and 180 m in height to the top of the flare. Petrobras said the unit arrived from Singapore in October with commissioning and operations teams onboard, allowing systems commissioning to advance during transit and removing the need for a stopover in sheltered Brazilian waters.
Petrobras added that P-78 is the seventh producing unit at Búzios. The field surpassed 1 million barrels per day in October 2025, was discovered in 2010 by well 2-ANP-1-RJS, and is located about 180 km offshore Rio de Janeiro in ultra-deep water areas of the Santos Basin at depths of more than 2,000 m.
