The Alexandre de Gusmão FPSO, the fifth installed in the Mero field in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin, has reached peak production at 180,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd). Mero is the third largest producing field in Brazil, after Búzios and Tupi.
The FPSO, chartered from SBM Offshore, initially plans to connect to 12 wells: six oil producers and six water or gas injectors alternately. Currently, five oil producers and 3 injectors are already connected.
In addition to the FPSO Alexandre de Gusmão, the FPSOs Pioneiro de Libra, Guanabara, Sepetiba, and Marechal Duque de Caxias operate in the field.
“The Mero asset had an average production of approximately 740 mbpd in the second quarter of 2026, even before the top of the Alexandre de Gusmão. The top of the unit shows that we are on a firm path of increasing the operational efficiency of our assets,” said Petrobras' Exploration and Production Director, Sylvia Anjos.
The Mero field features the implementation of the world's largest seismic monitoring project, the PRM (Permanent Reservoir Monitoring), a subsea infrastructure composed of an extensive network of sensors and optical instruments. The PRM aims for better management of Mero's production and maximum oil recovery from the reservoirs. It will also receive HISEP® (High Pressure Separation), a technology patented by Petrobras, currently undergoing qualification, which allows for the subsea separation between extracted oil and associated gas rich in CO₂, which is directly reinjected into the reservoir.
Operations at the Mero unitized field are conducted by a consortium operated by Petrobras, in partnership with Shell Brasil, TotalEnergies, CNPC, CNOOC, and Pré-Sal Petróleo SA (PPSA), as manager of the production sharing contract and representative of the Brazilian government.