Brazil's Mero field to produce 40,000 bpd by end of Feb -Petrobras

(Adds detail on shipments, new platform)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Brazil's Mero field in the giant offshore Libra area should see production double to 40,000 barrels of oil per day by the end of February helped by gas injection, an official at state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro said on Friday.

As part of a long-duration output test, the area is already producing 20,000 bpd, according to Fernando Borges, Petrobras' manager for Libra.

"Once we start doing the gas injection, our expectation is to be able to boost production from that one well to 40,000 barrels per day and that will keep producing for nine months," Borges said.

Petrobras owns 40 percent of the Libra project, with Anglo-Dutch Shell and France's Total SA each owning 20 percent. Chinese state oil companies CNOOC Ltd and China National Petroleum Corp Ltd each hold 10 percent.

The field is located in the Santos Basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil's offshore presalt layer, where billions of barrels of oil are trapped under thousands of feet of salt under the ocean floor.

Borges said the company completed an initial shipment of 500,000 barrels of oil, which will soon by followed by another made by Shell.

Shipments of 500,000 barrels are currently planned every 25 days but will switch to once every 12 days when production doubles, Borges said.

Petrobras said on Thursday it was beginning a competitive process to charter a second FPSO, a platform that produces, stores, and transfers oil and gas, to develop the field.

Production from the platform, which will be capable of producing 180,000 bpd and processing 12 million cubic meters of gas per day, is slated for 2022, Petrobras said.

Production in the Libra area began in November 2017 with the launch of the Pioneiro de Libra FPSO, which performs long-term testing and has early production systems. (Reporting by Marta Nogueira and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)