Brazil’s Petrobras to Miss Oil Output Target

(Bloomberg) – Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer, will miss this year’s production target because of safety work on offshore rigs.  Petrobras, as the company is known, won’t achieve average output of 2.1 million barrels a day this year, Chief Executive Officer Jose Sergio Gabrielli said in an interview at the World Petroleum Congress in Doha, Qatar.

The Rio de Janeiro- based company is likely to pump 2.08 million barrels a day in December, he said.

“There are two main reasons: we have more unplanned stoppage for maintenance than we had last year and this was the result of rising standards for inspections,” Gabrielli said. “And the second thing is that we have some problems in delays of drilling ships.”

Petrobras is spending more than $200 billion in the five years to 2015 to develop the western hemisphere’s largest oil discoveries in three decades. Brazil plans to get production to 6 million barrels a day by the end of the decade, more than any Middle East nation other than Saudi Arabia.

The company will add 13 drilling rigs off Brazil next year as it works toward having 37 platforms operating by 2015.

To finance investment, Petrobras will raise as much as $91 billion in debt before 2015, Gabrielli said. The company will raise money “predominantly” in dollars, but is looking at debt sales in reals, euros and pounds.

By Anthony DiPaola (Bloomberg)

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Bloomberg, December 8, 2011; Image: Petrobras