Statoil licenses five more wells in pre-salt

April 9, 2018

Statoil, which recently announced its name change to Equinor, began the environmental licensing of five more wells in the pre-salt area of ​​Norte de Carcará, a project of share production from the 2nd pre-salt auction held in October last year and included unitized areas. The company is also licensing a short-term training test on the project. The campaign will use Brasco’s base in Niterói as logistical support.

The Norwegian has adopted the same strategy used by Shell to anticipate its licensing in production sharing projects before it even performs seismic in the area. Shell went to Ibama for its project one day after signing the production-sharing contracts and is licensing the drilling of five other wells in the pre-salt, two in the southern block of Gato do Mato, in the Santos Basin, and another three in the Alto de Cabo Frio Oeste block, Santos Basin. The company intends to start drilling campaigns in January 2019.

Statoil received an environmental license from IBAMA for the drilling of up to seven wells in the exploratory block area BM-S-8, Carcara, in the Santos Basin pre-salt. The license, which is valid for four years, also releases a short-term training test in an existing well. The first well of the project began to be drilled in February.

An agreement with Seadrill foresees the use of the West Saturn rig for drilling a well and conducting the test. Depending on the results, the company may exercise the option of using the rig to drill the remaining six wells.

This is the first drilling campaign released for Statoil in the pre-salt area. The Norwegian oil company bought in 2016 Petrobras’ stake in the project. In October last year, shortly after acquiring the North Block of Carcara, the consortium formed between Statoil, ExxonMobil and Galp reported a new corporate reorganization in the project.

Statoil, which acquired Petrobras’ 66% stake in BM-S-8 for $ 2.5 billion, sold half of that stake to ExxonMobil for $ 1.3 billion. In addition, it sold 3.5% and 3%, respectively, of the 10% portion that it bought from Queiroz Galvão E & P in the area to ExxonMobil and Galp, an operation that moved another US $ 250 million.

The company is not only betting on Brazilian pre-salt. In December, Petrobras and Statoil announced that the Norwegian company would pay R $ 2.35 billion for a 25% stake in the Roncador field in the Campos Basin. Statoil has committed to pay an additional $ 550 million in contingent investments for recovery projects in the field, the main partnership between the two companies.