Petrobras invests to reverse Campos post-salt decline

October 28, 2019

The forecast is to invest US $ 21 billion by 2023 to maintain the Campos Basin production curve.

At the same time as it sets record highs in the pre-salt, Petrobras is facing the challenge of containing the sharp natural decline of its production in the Campos Basin post-salt. The company, however, promises to accelerate investments to make up for losses in the region.

According to the director of exploration and production of Petrobras, Carlos Alberto Pereira de Oliveira, the forecast is to invest US $ 21 billion by 2023, with the intention of “maintaining the production curve support” of the Campos Basin, where the oil company produces about 980,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent (BOE / day) of oil and natural gas.

Of this volume, basically half comes from pre-salt and the other half from post-salt. While pre-salt volumes are rising year by year, according to data from the National Petroleum Agency (ANP), Petrobras production in the Campos Basin post-salt has plummeted by almost half this decade from 1 million from BOE / day in 2011 to approximately 530 thousand BOE / day this year.

“We are currently investing heavily in an operational efficiency improvement program. So we have seen some [platform] operations that end up having to stop to upgrade [efficiency improvements]. We have a schedule that consists of a series of initiatives that we have been developing in 2019 and that will be accentuated over the years, ”said the executive, during a conference call with investors.

Petrobras’ project ranges from the entry of two new platforms for the revitalization of the Marlim field to the drilling of 87 new wells in the basin. At the same time, the oil company keeps its divestment program active for the sale of lower profitable assets in the area. In this sense, the state-owned company has already signed contracts of US $ 1.34 billion for the sale of Pargo, Pampo and Enchova poles, as well as the Maromba field.

The expectation, according to Oliveira, is that interventions for the recovery of Campos Basin production will push up the company’s extraction cost for its deepwater, post-salt assets, currently at $ 13 a barrel. Ultimately, in the medium to long term, these costs should return to current levels.

“We will initially see a lower performance, but expecting to improve performance. We hope to restore production, ”said Oliveira.

In addition to the recovery of current production, Petrobras intends to intensify investments in the exploration of the Campos Basin in the coming years, in search of new discoveries. The company will campaign in blocks auctioned over the past two years, but will also seek to drill pre-salt from mature fields, which they traditionally produce in the post-salt layer. In this sense, the company prepares long-term testing in the Forno area, discovered in the Albacora concession.

Source: Valor