Corio Generation and Brazilian shipyard and marine construction company Estaleiros do Brasil (EBR) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the development of offshore wind off Brazil’s south coast.
Corio and EBR will look at how EBR’s existing infrastructure, located close to Rio Grande port in Brazil’s southern province of Rio Grande do Sul, could support the deployment of two windfarms planned for the south of the country, the 1200MW Cassino Offshore Wind and the 1200MW Rio Grande Offshore Wind projects.
Under the MOU, there is the potential to enter commercial negotiations to reserve part of an area used to facilitate the projects.
Corio is aiming to develop five offshore windfarms in Brazil with up to 6GW of capacity.
Four of these projects, totalling approximately 4.8 GW, are located off the southern and south-eastern coastlines of the country.
“There is a lot of synergy between offshore wind projects and the oil and gas industry in areas such as operations, maintenance, logistics and port infrastructure,” EBR CEO Wataru Nosaka said.
“Our shipyard has a long-standing presence in the south of the country, training and employing thousands of workers over many decades, and that is why we warmly welcome the opportunity to jointly evaluate the potential for EBR and the region of São José do Norte to become the centre of offshore wind in the south of Brazil.”