ANP Expects R$17Billion in Investments from the Extension of Round Zero Onshore Contracts

The Brazilian oil and gas sector is expected to receive approximately R$17 billion in new onshore investments from the extension of contracts for 139 onshore oil and natural gas production fields originated in Round Zero. This figure was released by the National Petroleum Agency (ANP).

The so-called Round Zero was held in 1998, following the publication of the Petroleum Law (Law No. 9,478/1997), which ended Petrobras’ monopoly in the oil and natural gas sector. The round ratified the state-owned company’s rights to the fields in which it already produced. Since then, Petrobras has sold most of the fields to other companies.

The 139 contracts extended by the ANP were scheduled to expire in 2025 and were extended at the request of the field operators. The agency completed approvals of the new development plans in August. This measure includes investments aimed at increasing the recovery factors of the fields and ensuring sustainable production continuity.

According to the ANP, these investments will primarily be made in producing wells, covering the following activities:

– Drilling and completion (a set of engineering operations that transform a drilled well into a producing well): 2,115 new wells;

– Recompletion (a procedure to reconfigure or recondition an existing well, allowing, for example, the exploration of new reservoir zones): 5,546 wells;

– Interventions (operations performed on a well during or after its useful life, with the aim of maintaining, restoring, or increasing its production, conducting diagnostic evaluations, or repairing the well structure): 1,039 operations.

The agency also predicts that the extensions will guarantee production gains in the fields in the coming years. For onshore oil, an estimated 600 million barrels are expected, and for natural gas, approximately 72 billion cubic meters (m³).

The approved development plans for onshore fields also resulted in historic advances in recovery factors, as predicted in the development plans, increasing from 22.56% to 26.34% for oil and from 40.06% to 65.33% for natural gas.