The Brazilian state-owned oil company, Petrobras, has begun using a Chinese-built floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel in extracting oil and natural gas from the Sépia field in the Santos Basin off southern Brazil, the China News Service (CNS) reports.

The vessel can inject 24,000 cubic meters of water and handle up to 28,600 cubic metres of oil and 6 million cubic metres of natural gas each day, according to a report carried by the Chinese state-owned news agency on Sunday.

The report says the vessel has the latest drilling systems, and accommodation for workers.

Petrobras took delivery of the vessel last November, the report says.

Singaporean shipowner Modec Offshore Production Systems (Singapore) Pte Ltd contracted Dalian COSCO Shipping Heavy Industries, a subsidiary of COSCO Shipyard Group of China, to convert an oil tanker into the FPSO vessel, CNS says.