Ventos de Libra Project: A New Concept for Supplying Energy in Ultradeep Water Floating Oil and Gas Platforms from Offshore Wind Power

Abstract The oil and gas industry are intensive in energy, and floating platforms are mostly supplied by gas, representing the major contribution to greenhouse gas emissions during production. Considering the energy transition process and Net Zero agreements, renewable energy is a natural pathway to decarbonize O&G production. One of the most considered technologies for offshore electricity production is offshore wind energy, projects developed in the North Sea and the Scandinavian Peninsula, empowered to reduce gas consumption O&G offshore production infrastructure with the employment of wind energy, serves to demonstrate the present opportunity for increasing the sustainability of production plants where this resource is available. The R&D Ventos de Libra Project aims to overcome scientific and technological challenges for the use of wind energy for the electrification of Floating Production Storage Offloading – FPSO-type O&G platforms, operating in the Brazilian pre-salt, localized about 200 km from the coast and 2,000 m of water depth. The region of interest includes Búzios and Mero Fields (Libra Block), located in Santos Basin – Rio de Janeiro, operated by Petrobras and by Libra’s consortium, which includes Petrobras, Shell, TotalEnergies, CNPC, CNOOC, and PPSA companies. A multidisciplinary strategy is adopted to achieve these goals on the project, including wind measurements with a (floating) LiDAR-based station, meso and microscale modeling of the atmospheric flow, wind tunnel modeling of the Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer, offshore electrical modeling of the integrated system, systemic environmental analysis. This work presents a feasibility study of integrated energy systems composed of floating wind turbines associated with gas turbines to supply electricity to FPSOs. The main objectives of the study are, firstly, the wind resource assessment of the Mero (Libra) and Buzios fields and, secondly, to evaluate the impact of the provisioning of wind power energy in substitution for gas turbines in oil platforms, both in terms of technology integration and of the reduction of emissions of harmful gases. The project is the first Brazilian proposal for sustainable supply to floating oil platforms based on wind energy. It integrates solutions from the oil and gas industry in synergy with offshore wind energy technology. The results of the analyses will support the next stages of development of the project, which aim at a technical and economic evaluation of the replacement of gas turbines by wind turbines, translated into the definition of the design of the offshore floating wind project integrated with FPSOs, as well as at the quantification of emissions avoided in the adoption of the integrated model.