Most off-shore oil is produced by companies from platforms that stand on the ocean floor. In water too deep for these platforms, the companies use floating vessels with pipelines capable of reaching the sea-floor.

But the technique used for deep-water oil exploration is now undergoing a major development through introduction of oil-drilling ships by Petrobras – Brazil’s national oil company – thus expanding the global search for oil in deep-waters.

According to a report appearing in the Dallas’ Morning News, the Brazilian-based fleet is leading the way in exploration of oil in the Atlantic ocean.

As stated by the president of the Petrobras, the company’s oil production would nearly double to 4.1 million barrels a day by 2015, even if the company’s latest oil discoveries were not taken into account. The company discovered one of the world’s biggest oil-fields recently (holding nearly 33 billion barrels of oil) in the Atlantic ocean.

It is in the process of discovering other deep-water oil-fields which, according to some Brazilian petroleum analysts, could hold as much as 60 billion barrels of oil. If the estimates were correct, Brazil would be one of the five to six top oil producers and exporters within the next 10 years.

To achieve its objective of being among the world’s top oil producers and exporters, as quickly as possible, Brazil’s national oil co has employed its fleet consisting of modern drill-ships – never heard of before – to discover oil in deep-waters.

According to the reports, a new ship added to the fleet, is named P-53. It is virtually a production factory, as it can extract and filter 180,000 barrels of crude oil a day. At the same time, it can store more than 1.5 million barrels of oil until tankers arrive to offload and take the oil to the shore. .

Another ship in the Brazilian fleet is capable of steadying itself on the waves, without the support of the traditional anchors or moorings. Instead, the ship is helped by the satellite and computer guidance systems which hold it within a few feet over the drill hole. The ship is being used to drill oil wells through two miles of ocean-water and more than five miles of sea-floor.

There is yet another type of ship known as Peregrine I, leased by Petrobras from Energy Equipment, US. The company uses the ship for drilling of oil 100 miles off the coast. Energy Equipment has also provided to the company a floating workers’ dormitory, capable of arranging offshore housing for 300 Brazilian oil workers.

Petrobras has as many as 20 oil production ships like the P-53 in the deep waters. The company is studying possibility of having floating power plants, gas-to-liquid plants and other sea-worthy factories, so that it can transport its products more conveniently to the shore.

The drill ships are needed by the company, as some of the oil-fields discovered are 100 to 185 miles away from the sea-coast, where a standard rig would not work, because the sea’s bottom is too deep.

According to reports, the floor of the Atlantic ocean between Rio-De-Janeiro and Sao-Paulo could eventually prove the hottest oil province in the world. The company hopes to increase its off-shore oil production by 225,000 barrels a day- on an average – every year, for the next eight years.

It would be interesting to know how the drill-ship works. Rising above a hole in the ship’s hull is a drilling rig. On reaching the targeted place, the rig drops a drill bit through a steel pipe, capable of extending more than a mile through the ocean water. The ship’s rig can drill 25,000 feet or nearly five miles, beyond that pipe into the sea-floor.

Computers and global positioning satellite help to stabilise the ship within 53 feet of the well-head a mile below. There are special motors attached horizontally and vertically to the hull. The computers and satellites feed information to the motors to keep the ship steady.

The advantage of using the floating production is that ships can collect and process oil, while far away from the coast. These ships can store large quantities of oil in the hull. Due to these qualities of the ships, the company does not need hundreds of miles of pipelines to carry its product to the shore and it collects, processes and stores the oil, while in deep-waters, until tankers arrive to collect the oil.

Nevertheless, the cost of the ships and the deep-water oil exploration is very high. For instance, the cost of a P-53 ship is a staggering $1.3 billion, while the daily rent of the new drill ships is as high as $610,000. Petrobras says it has renewed the contracts of five rigs for $4billion for five years.

According to the company’s sources, nine other rigs were being built at different places and their delivery would start from next year. The company expected to spend nearly $412.5 billion over the next five years on oil and natural gas exploration and development.

The Brazilian fleet reportedly sails under the Petrobras banner. Most of the shares of the oil company are held by foreign investors, bringing the market capitalisation to $435 billion on the strength of the company’s oil discoveries so far and future expectations. However, a controlling 40 per cent interest has been retained by the Brazilian government itself.

The deep-water oil exploration in the Brazilian waters, on an unprecedented scale, by Petrobras gives a hope that the effort may boost global oil supplies, ensuring oil security and bringing down oil prices from their record-high levels.