OGX: Technical Issues Affect March Oil Production (Brazil)

 OGX Petróleo e Gás Participações S.A. , Brazil’s largest private oil and natural gas exploration company, announces that its March 2013 average oil and natural gas production reached 15.1 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).

Of this amount, 8.3 thousand boepd corresponds to the offshore average production at Tubarão Azul Field, in the Campos Basin, and 6.8 thousand boepd (1.1 million m3 per day) to OGX’s share of the average production of natural gas at the onshore Gavião Real Field, in the Parnaíba Basin. The total offshore production was 256,743 barrels of oil equivalent and the total onshore production was 72.3 million m3 of natural gas.

Offshore Production

Production at the Tubarão Azul Field was affected by the following factors:

 OGX-68HP: Operational issues caused overheating and damage to the centrifugal submersible pump (CSP) resulting in a 15 day stoppage at this well in March;

 TBAZ-1HP: Unstable electrical generation at OSX-1 led to intermittent operations and damage to the CSP at this well, resulting in an 11 day stoppage during March;

 OGX-26HP: As a result of unstable electrical generation at OSX-1, production stopped for 2 days in March for safety reasons. The well returned to its normal production after energy generation was restored.

The repair of OGX-68HP well’s CSP will take approximately one month, which commenced in mid-April with completion expected in mid-May. The work on the TBAZ-1HP well should begin after the operational issues at the OGX-68HP well have been resolved. Production at both wells will remain interrupted until the CSP overhauls are completed.

Considering the effective production days of the three wells connected to FPSO OSX-1, the average offshore productivity per well was 3.9 thousand boepd in March.

Onshore Production

Total average production at the Gavião Real Field was 2.3 million m3 per day (1.1 million m³ net to OGX), with two turbines operating at the Thermo Power Plant I during the entire month. The third turbine started operating on March 16, after it was synchronized with the National System.