Petrobras’ Proven Pre-Salt Reserves Up 43 Pct in One Year

Petrobras announces that its proven pre-salt reserves are up 43% in 2013 compared to 2012. Since 2007, the Company has been adding increasing amounts to its proven reserves coming from the pre-salt layer, which extends from the south of the state of Espírito Santo to the state of Santa Catarina.

Currently, more than a quarter of the proven Petrobras reserves come from the pre-salt. In 2013, forty-two wells were drilled in the pre-salt layer, coupled with the outstanding performance of the production platforms in the Campos and Santos Basins, so allowing reserves to increase by 43%.

Importantly, along with the increase in reserves, production has also increased in pre-salt layer. On January 13, 2014, a second production well, with a production of 28,000 barrels of oil per day, on the Cidade de Paraty platform came on stream in the Lula field. This platform now produces a total of 58,000 barrels of oil per day.

Production record

As a result, a new daily record was reached on January 14, 2014, where oil production from Petrobras operations in the pre-salt surpassed the level of 390,000 barrels of oil per day. The previous record was set on December 24, 2013, with 371,000 barrels of oil per day.

Of the two basins in production in the pre-salt, Campos and Santos, the latter contributed 51% to this record of 390,000 barrels of oil per day, with nine production wells in operation, proving the high productivity of the fields discovered in pre-salt layer. Average production per well, in commercial operation, in the Pre-salt Santos Basin hub has been around 25,000 barrels of oil per well per day, which is higher than levels recorded in the North Sea (15,000 barrels of oil per well per day) and the Gulf of Mexico (10,000 barrels of oil per well per day)

Cumulative production in the pre-salt fields, which started in 2008, has surpassed 290 million barrels of oil equivalent. As such, we have reached a pre-salt production in six years that is almost double the cumulative production of the Garoupa field (156 million barrels of oil equivalent) in the Campos Basin.

In December 2013, three Declarations of Commercial Viability demonstrate the feasibility of producing in three separate pre-salt areas: Lapa (Carioca), Búzios (Franco) and Sul de Lula (Sul de Tupi), all in the Santos Basin.

Additionally, pre-salt discoveries in fields already in production in the Campos Basin, such as Albacore, Caratinga and Marlim Leste contributed to the increase in reserves in 2013, especially for their quick monetization by interconnecting wells to platforms already in operation.

Another important result supporting future pre-salt production area planning is its excellent geological success rate of 100% in 2013, i.e. all pre-salt wells drilled in 2013 indicate the presence of hydrocarbons.

In 2014, seventeen new wells will be connected to platforms already installed in the Pre-Salt Santos Basin hub.

In the second half of 2014, two new platforms will come on stream in the Pre-salt Hub in the Santos Basin: the Cidade de Ilhabela platform in the Sapinhoá Norte field, and the Cidade de Mangaratiba platform in the Iracema Sul field will increase daily production capacity by 300,000 barrels of oil per day in the Pre-salt Hub in the Santos Basin. These two new platforms will be connected to another five new wells in 2014.

With the two new platforms (Cidade de Ilhabela and Cidade de Mangaratiba) coming on stream and twenty-two new production wells in 2014 coming on stream, they will contribute to reaching a new pre-salt production record this year.

The expression “pre-salt” makes reference to an aggregation of rocks located offshore in a large portion of the Brazilian coast and with potential to generate and accumulate oil. It was called pre-salt because it forms a rock interval that ranges under an extensive layer of salt which, in certain areas of the coast, can be as much as 2,000 meters thick. The “pre” expression is used because, through time, these rocks were deposited before the salt layer. The total depth of these rocks, i.e., the distance between the surface of the sea and the oil reservoirs under the salt layer, can be as much as 7,000 meters.

[mappress]
Press Release, January 16, 2013