Rio de Janeiro – This Tuesday, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) signed a term of commitment with United States-based multinational company FMC Technologies for building a technology centre at the Rio Technological Park, located in the Cidade Universitária campus. The centre, which should be a reference in technological solutions for the oil and gas industry, should employ approximately 300 engineers and cover an area of 20,000 square metres, with research and development centres, testing laboratories and other facilities. Construction should start this month, and the works should be concluded by the end of the first half of 2011.
Paulo Couto, the vice president of FMC Technologies in Brazil, stated that the company currently has 1,600 employees in the country, and the expansion will take place alongside an unequalled opportunity for technological development of the gas and oil industry. “We have passed an investment of 200 million reals (US$ 112 million) for the next three years in Brazil. One third of that total will go to the UFRJ’s Technological Park, and the remainder will be allocated to factory capacity. We have an aggressive plan for hiring and training of our team. Our vision consists of working in two main areas of technological development: the pre-salt, where we intend to help Petrobras build its new vision of offshore oil production, and the increasing of the recovery factor, which consists of making production more economical through the use of technology,” said Couto.
In the opinion of Maurício Guedes, director of the Rio Technological Park, the initiative will enable interaction between a large company and a large university, resulting in benefits for the entire region and the country. According to Guedes, after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the world no longer has doubts regarding the need of technological innovation for safe, sustainable extraction of oil in deep waters.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum