Brazil: Petrobras, Partners Declare Guara Area as Commercially Viable

As operator of the consortium for Block BM-S-9, Petrobras today submitted the Declaration of Commerciality for the Guará area to the National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP).   

The new field is to be called Sapinhoá and the estimated total recoverable volume notified was 2.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe). Sapinhoá is yet another enormous field discovered in the Brazilian pre-salt layer and one of the biggest in the country, consisting of good quality oil reservoirs (30º API).

The consortium also submitted the final Evaluation Plan Report for the area. The Development Plan report will be submitted to the ANP in February 2012. The Declaration of Commerciality was issued following implementation of the Exploratory Evaluation Program, begun when the first well was drilled in 2008.

Four wells were drilled in the area, including one to obtain data on the reservoir. In addition, four formation tests were conducted in three of the wells, as well as a five-month extended well test (EWT) which confirmed its excellent output potential. The flow was maintained throughout the entire test period and the test produced relevant information on the carbonate reservoirs for optimizing the development plan.

The Declaration of Commerciality of the field was brought forward by a year, since the deadline for the Evaluation Plan approved by the ANP was December 31, 2012.

The excellent exploratory data obtained in the area reaffirms the high potential of the pre-salt layer and presents a promising outlook for boosting the Company’s output and oil and natural gas reserves. Petrobras is the operator of Block BM-S-9, in partnership with BG Group (30%) and Repsol Sinopec Brasil (25%).

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Offshore Energy Today Staff, December 30, 2011; Image: Petrobras