More evidence that all roads lead to Brazil

**c.captain** · June 27th, 2011, 04:23 PM

Brazil OSX Gets Go-Ahead to Start Building Acu Shipyard

Brazilian oil-field services company OSX Brasil said Monday that it had received approval to start construction of a shipyard at the Acu Port complex in Rio de Janeiro state.

OSX will start work next month to build "the largest shipyard in the Americas," the company said. OSX, part of billionaire Brazilian businessman Eike Batista's industrial conglomerate, will partner with South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. to build the shipyard, the company said.

Brazil's ship-building industry is undergoing a renaissance as the company ramps up production to meet growing demand from the country's oil and natural-gas industry. Several new shipyards are under construction along Brazil's Atlantic Ocean coast, while many yards that were closed during an industry downturn in the early 1980s are being revived. Brazil was among the world's largest ship producing countries in the 1980s before a global downturn in the industry saw the local docks shuttered.

Last week, OSX said that it had received approval for a credit line worth up to 2.7 billion Brazilian reais ($1.69 billion) from Brazil's Merchant Marine Fund to finance construction of the shipyard. OSX plans to build vessels for sister company OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes, which will produce crude oil from the Campos Basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state. The 2,400-meter docks at the shipyard will have the capacity to build up to 11 floating production, storage and offloading vessels, or FPSOs, at the same time. The FPSOs use hulls about the size of an oil supertanker.

Another OSX sister company, LLX Logistica, which is responsible for construction of Acu port, said Monday it gained an environmental permit to construct a navigation channel within the port. The channel, called TX2, will provide 8,000 meters of quayside, substantially boosting the quayside capacity available on the port's coastal stretch

Can you image the economic boost doing the same in the US would create? We can built large complex vessels like drillships. If we can build a nuclear sub of aircraft carrier we can build an FPSO. To be sure, the cost will be significantly higher but the oil majors can afford the extra expense. Here is the benefit of having a state owned oil company. They can make decisions beyond only the bottom line.

Oh well as long as the jobs on the rigs and ships stay American...oh wait, that isn't the case either.

Damn!