Offshore staff

RIO DE JANEIRO – The rise in oil prices will stimulate offshore seismic activity in Brazil but challenges remain to unlock projects, according to a report from BNamericas. 

Andreia Leão Owens, a consultant for EnerGeo Alliance, told BNamericas that: “Environmental licensing has improved a lot over the years, but there are still difficulties.” Owens said that recent bidding rounds held by regulator ANP saw exploration blocks involved in environmental controversies.

“Seismic companies are the first in the oil and gas supply chain. If the risk is high, everything is very unstable for the companies,” Owens was quoted to say.

The federal government is expected to set up soon technical working groups with the participation of authorities and industry representatives, including ANP, environmental regulator Ibama and Brazil’s petroleum institute IBP, to discuss improvements to environmental licensing and the future of Brazil’s oil and gas bidding rounds. 

The report also noted that Petrobras has launched a tender to contract seismic services off Brazil’s southeast coast. The work includes the acquisition of 3D data with ocean bottom nodes, gravimetric and magnetometric data in the Berbigão, Sururu and Atapu fields, in the Santos basin. Water depths in the areas varies between 1,900 m and 2,400 m.

Petrobras is also reported to be carrying out a bidding process to hire services for the survey of exclusive Streamer 4D marine seismic and magnetometric gravimetric data in the Tartaruga Verde and Tartaruga Verde Sudoeste fields, in the Campos basin. 

According to ANP, a total of 13,327 sq km of 3D seismic data and 13,146 km of 2D data are programmed to be acquired off the country’s coast in 2022, considering the exploration commitments assumed by operators. The projected investments total 141mn reais (US$27.5mn) and 1.5mn reais, respectively.

02/25/2022