Rolls-Royce today announced a new order from the Brazilian state oil company, Petrobras, for an additional four gas turbine power generation packages valued at $73 million for use on a new offshore platform.

This brings the number of Rolls-Royce gas turbine generator sets for Petrobras offshore projects to 27 since 2001, with a total value of more than $300 million.

The new order is for RB211-powered generating set packages for the
$1.2 billion P-56 semi-submersible platform, which is part of the development of the Marlim Sul field, located off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in the Campos Basin, Brazil’s most abundant oil production area.

Tom Curley, President of the Rolls-Royce energy business said. “We are once again pleased to be chosen by Petrobras for these latest offshore units. We are proud of the relationship that has continued to strengthen between Petrobras and Rolls-Royce over the past several years, and we look forward to continuing to play an integral role in Brazil’s oil and gas production activities.”

Four RB211 dual-fuel generating sets will be installed in two modules, and will provide complete electrical power for the P-56 platform. Once situated, the platform will be located 124 km off the coast, and will eventually be connected to 22 different wellheads at a depth of 1,700 meters.

Eleven of the wellheads will be oil and gas producers, with the remaining 11 used to inject water to increase the production flow.

The gas turbine generating sets will be packaged by Rolls-Royce at its plant in Mount Vernon, Ohio with the RB211 gas turbine engines being manufactured at the Rolls-Royce facility in Montreal, Canada.

• Rolls-Royce first received orders for RB211 gas turbines from Petrobras in January 2001 when eight units were chosen for the P-43 and P-48 Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels.

• In December 2003, another four were ordered for P-52 and in May and June 2004 an additional seven were chosen for the P51 and PRA-1 platforms. A year later, another four were ordered for the P-53 offshore structure

• Eleven Rolls-Royce RF3BB-20 centrifugal gas compressors have been ordered by Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery, Inc.for the Petrobras Gasene pipeline project. They are to be installed at three compression stations along the 1400-kilometer, 28 inch Gasene natural gas pipeline system between Catu-Bahia State and Caçimbas-Espirito Santo State. The line is designed to move 20 million cubic meters of gas per day

• Rolls-Royce has a fleet of over 550 industrial gas turbines operating offshore in 32 countries. The first units entered service offshore Venezuela in 1969, offshore USA in 1970 and the North Sea in 1972.

• In 2007 Rolls-Royce announced an order from the power generation utility Hidroeléctrica La Higuera S.A. in Chile for a Trent 60 Wet Low Emissions (WLE) Dual Fuel power generation package, capable of providing up to 58MW of electrical power at ISO conditions. It is to be installed at a new power plant at Colmito, Chile and is the first Trent 60 gas turbine to be ordered for service in Latin America.

• Total operating hours of Rolls-Royce industrial gas turbines worldwide is over 160 million.