One Country, Sixty Percent: How Singapore’s Seatrium Became a Brazilian Company in All but Name
The offshore giant earns most of its money in Brazil, built the platforms behind much of the country’s oil, and carries a complicated past. Its future is now a bet on the pre-salt.
eyesonbrasil
Drive south from Rio along the Costa Verde and, near Angra dos Reis, the skyline changes. Cranes tower over a yard that has been assembling the floating factories of Brazil’s offshore oil industry since 2000. The yard, BrasFELS, belongs to a Singapore multinational that most Brazilians have never heard of.
Seatrium is the company formed in 2023 by merging Sembcorp Marine and Keppel Offshore & Marine. Its roots in Brazil go back to the 1980s, when it did repair and conversion work on Petrobras vessels. Today Brazil represents more than 60% of its global revenue.
Three yards, one customer
In Brazil, Seatrium runs three operational shipyards: BrasFELS in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro; Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz in Aracruz, Espírito Santo; and Seatrium Singmarine Brasil in Navegantes, Santa Catarina. Together, the company says, they have drawn roughly €1.3 billion in accumulated investment. Having yards on the ground also helps it meet Brazil’s local-content rules for oil projects.
The big customer is Petrobras. The company says the assets it built support over 70% of Brazil’s current oil production capacity, a claim that could not be independently verified. What is documented is the current order book: Seatrium reports progress on six Petrobras platforms, P-78, which reached first gas at the Búzios field, plus P-80, P-82, P-83, P-84 and P-85. The group describes Brazil as the anchor market for deep-water FPSOs, backed by break-even costs well below current oil prices.
The numbers
The business is healthy. In the first half of 2026, revenue rose from S$5.4 billion to S$5.6 billion, and the net order book stood at S$13.3 billion across 24 projects with deliveries through 2033. Net profit reached S$373 million, against S$144 million a year earlier, and the company is eyeing a pipeline of more than S$32 billion over the next 24 months, of which about S$21 billion is oil and gas, S$9 billion offshore wind and S$2 billion conversions.
The shadow of Lava Jato
No serious account of Seatrium in Brazil can skip the past. In December 2017, Keppel Offshore & Marine agreed to pay more than US$422 million to resolve charges that it bribed Brazilian officials, including some at Petrobras. US prosecutors said the scheme ran from 2001 to 2014 and involved about US$55 million in bribes to win 13 contracts with Petrobras and with Sete Brasil. Keppel’s Brazilian unit, Keppel FELS Brasil, reached a leniency agreement with Brazilian prosecutors. That unit operated what is now BrasFELS.
The other half of Seatrium has its own history. At the time, a former Petrobras executive had said in plea testimony that a representative of Sembcorp’s Jurong Aracruz shipyard was involved in bribe payments. Sembcorp Marine said it made no illegal payments and that its policies prohibit bribery. It is not clear from the sources reviewed whether that case led to penalties.
The risk of loving one customer
The strength of Seatrium’s Brazil bet is also its vulnerability. When more than 60% of revenue comes from a single country, and most of it from a single state-controlled client, the company’s fortunes track Petrobras’s investment plans, Brazilian politics and the oil price. The pre-salt is rich, but a slowdown in FPSO orders, a change in local-content rules or a political shock would be felt in Singapore at once.
Seatrium knows this. It is looking at Guyana, West Africa and Southeast Asia, and at offshore wind. In Brazil, though, the company says it is waiting for regulation and definition of areas before committing investment in offshore wind. Until then, the Brazilian business remains, above all, about oil.
What to watch
Three things will shape the next chapter: whether Petrobras keeps ordering FPSOs at the current pace, whether Brazil finally opens its offshore wind market, and whether the Brazilian shipyards can keep delivering on schedule. For a company that has made Brazil its primary market, the stakes are as large as a platform.
Sources: Seatrium Brazil operations page, Jornal de Brasília, Portos e Navios, SINAVAL, Jornal Tribuna Livre, Reuters/Investing.com, Seatrade Maritime, Business Recorder.
