BG has announced first oil from the Cidade de Itaguaí FPSO vessel, the sixth unit to start production across the group’s discoveries in the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil.

The FPSO will produce from the Iracema North area of the Lula (32/8) Field in the Petrobras-operated Block BM-S-11.

The Cidade de Itaguaí is anchored 240 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in about 2,200 m of water.

This is the second leased FPSO deployed on the Iracema development and will double the gross production capacity to 300 Mbbl/d of oil and 16 MMcm/d of natural gas from the area. The FPSO has capacity to store 1.6 MMbbl of oil.

BG said it achieved record net production from the Santos Basin in July, reaching 159 Mboe/d.

Gross production from FPSO 4 Cidade de Ilhabela has averaged about 88 Mbbl/d with three producer wells and one injector well. FPSO 5 Cidade de Mangaratiba has averaged about 130 Mbbl/d from four producer and three injector wells.

Production will continue to increase from both FPSOs through 2015 as additional wells are connected. FPSO 7 is in the Brasa shipyard in Brazil and final integration works have commenced. FPSO 8 is completing its current integration phase in China and is due to sail away in the coming weeks, while FPSO 9 integration works continue in Singapore. FPSOs 7 to 9 are due onstream in 2016.

Meanwhile, BG said that at the end of June, the BM-S-11 consortium submitted the initial field development plans for the proposed Atapú, Sururu and Berbigão areas within the wider Iara area.

This minimum development requirement incorporates two replicant FPSO vessels on Atapú due onstream in 2018, and one assigned to Berbigão/Sururu due onstream in 2019.

First production from Sururu will be via the connection of wells to the FPSO planned to be deployed on Berbigão.

This initial development plan might be amended and adjusted as additional information is acquired from the first FPSOs, BG added.