RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva inaugurated Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro state the first semi-submersible oil platform in his country.
The P-51 platform belongs to the state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras. It will operate in the Marlim Sul field, in the Campos Basin, 150 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state, in waters 1,255 meters deep.
The platform can produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day while gas compression capacity reaches 6 million cubic meters per day.
When reaching its maximum operating capacity in 2010, the P-51 will occupy 8 percent of the country's total oil production.
According to Petrobras, the unit represents a new achievement by the Brazilian marine industry: over 75 percent of the material and services in the platform's construction has been purchased from domestic companies, and the platform's cost amounts to about 1 billion U.S. dollars.
President Lula said in the ceremony that Brazil intends to extend its oil industry to meet global demand.
"What we want to build, in our country, is a large oil industry and naval base, so we can have a production base not only to meet Petrobras' needs, but also the entire world's increasing demand for oil and gas," he said.
