Brazilian state oil company Petrobras plans to build three ports and three heliports to provide logistical support for its expanding deepwater oil operations, a company official said.

The six facilities will be bid out to private contractors at a value not yet determined and are all expected to be operational by 2017, said Ricardo Araujo, who manages exploration and production logistics for Petrobras .

The heliports will transport workers via helicopter to and from the platforms. The number of passengers traveling each year to and from production centers is expected to rise to 1.4 million by 2016 from 850,000 this year, Araujo said.

The ports will allow the company to move equipment and supplies to platforms operating in the deepwater region known as the subsalt, which is believed to hold 50 billion barrels of oil deep beneath the ocean's surface under a layer of salt.

The facilities will be built in the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo.

Petrobras plans nearly to double oil production in Brazil to almost 4 million barrels per day in the next 10 years, with around half of that increase coming from the subsalt fields. (Reuters)