Brazilian oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has announced plans to bring its deepwater expertise from Brazil to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The company will invest $2 billion by 2010 in the deep and ultra-deep waters of the Gulf and become the first to deploy a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel in the Gulf.

The vessel will produce first oil by 2009 from the Chinook and Cascade fields, located in Walker Ridge in 7,000 to 9,000 feet of water. Initially, two Cascade and at least one Chinook well will be tied in.

In Houston in September, Renato Bertani, Petrobras America Inc. general manager, said FPSO technology is ideally suited for the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

Petrobras Americas holds interests in 277 Gulf blocks and operates 127 of them.

In August it stepped up its interests by acquiring an additional 25% of Cascade and 26.67% in Chinook, both from BHP Billiton. It also agreed to buy the 15% in Chinook held by Hess Corp.

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