READING, England, June 7 (UPI) -- British multinational energy company BG Group announced Friday its third floating production platform offshore Brazil started commercial oil and gas production.
BG Group said its Cidade de Paraty floating production, storage and offloading vessel entered into service about 185 miles off the coast of Brazil. The FPSO can process 120,000 barrels of oil and 176 million cubic feet of natural gas per day though the company said full capacity won't be reached until next year.
BG Group Chief Executive Officer Chris Finlayson said the addition of the Cidade de Paraty would help with the company's production goals of 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent from the Santos Basin in Brazil by 2020.
"We now have three FPSO vessels on-stream in the Santos Basin, two of which have started production this year alone as our development programs ramps up," he said in a statement.
An estimated 50 billion barrels of oil lies off Brazil's coast, a volume that's expected to put the Latin American country on par with some of the world's top oil producers.
