The giant Tupi oilfield offshore Brazil will get its giant floating production facility next year, after Japan's Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Co., or MODEC, on Monday awarded Dalian Shipyard Co. the job of converting its supertanker for.

Singapore-based COSCO Shipyard Group, indirect majority owner of the Chinese yard Dalian, said the 18-year-old very-large crude carrier VLCC Sunrise IV will become an FPSO, or floating production storage and offloading vessel, for MODEC.

The conversion is understood to cost over $500 million, judging from other conversions, and the contract involves repair, topside integration and commissioning. The vessel is set for final delivery in mid-2010.

The Tupi FPSO is designed to operate for 20 years without dry-docking and can produce 100,640 oil per day, 5,000,000 cubic metres of gas per day while storing 1,600,000 bbls of oil.

The capacity confirms Brazilian energy champion Petrobras statements of last year promising pilot production in late-2010 of 100,000 bpd, 10 percent of what BG chief exec Frank Chapman said was eventually possible at the offshore trove.

On Friday, BG announced first commercial oil from the Santos Basin field license BM-S-11, where another FPSO, the BW Cidade de Sao Vicente is already in production. A second well in the permit, Tupi P1, is planned for June 2009 and will be tied back to the same FPSO.

The current extended well test on Tupi is expected to last 15 months and is seen reaching 15 000 bpd.

The Tupi field is operated by Petrobras with a 65-percent stake. BG Group holds a 25-percent stake and Galp Energia a 10 percent.

The South Atlantic ocean at Tupi is 2,500 metres deep. Tupi is believed to contain up to eight billion barrels of oil and oil equivalent and has been reported in detail by Scandoil.com since its discovery late in 2007. Scandoil.com affiliate Scandinavian Oil-Gas Magazine has featured Tupi in deepwater coverage of past issues

Tags: COSCO Dalian Shipyard, MODEC, Tupi field