Offshore staff
(Rio de Janeiro)- Brazilian oil and gas company Petrobras announced that it has approved the Master Plan for development of natural gas and oil production in the Santos basin, and that the base of the next E&P unit will be located in the city of Santos, São Paulo state.
Petrobras and its partners expect to invest approximately $18 billion in the basin over the next 10 years in E&P activities. By the second half of 2008, the Master Plan forecasts an increase in gas supply to Brazil's southeastern market of about 12 MMcm/d. This volume should grow to about 30 MMcm/d by the end of 2010, which will go a long way to making the country more self sufficient in gas.
The plan calls for development in five production poles:
Merluza
The Merluza pole is located off the coast of São Paulo state, about 200 km from Santos, and currently produces 1.2 MMcm/d of gas and 1,600 b/d of condensate. Expansion plans call for increasing the output of the Merluza-1 platform, which is expected to be producing 2.5 MMcm/d of gas by 2008. In addition, the Merluza-2 platform will be installed, with a production capacity of 8 MMcm/d of gas and 25,000 b/d of oil and condensate. Total production potential in this pole is between 9 and 10 MMcm/d of gas by 2010.
South (Pólo Sul)
This pole, located approximately 200 km off the coast of the states of São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina, has future production potential of about 140,000 b/d of oil and 3 MMcm/d of gas. Plans to reach this potential include starting up operations in the Cavalo-Marinho field in 2008, which should produce 9,000 b/d of oil. This is similar production to the Coral platform, which is also located in this pole and is already operational. There are also allowances for future project start-ups in the pole.
Mexilhão
This pole is also located off São Paulo state, and has the capacity to produce up to 15 MMcm/d of gas and 20,000 b/d of oil and condensate. This pole, which contains the Mexilhão field and the Cedro area, is projected to reach output of between 8 and 9 MMcm/d of gas by the second half of 2008. Full operational capacity is expected by early in the next decade, when production from new areas and greater water depths in the Mexilhão field is brought on stream.
BS-500
This pole, located about 160 km from Rio de Janeiro, will be developed through the installation of oil and gas production systems. There are plans in place to ramp up production to about 20 MMcm/d of gas and 150,000-200,000 b/d of oil.
Center (Pólo Centro)
This pole is approximately 250 km from the coasts of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states and is still in the exploratory stage of development. Petrobras sees major potential for this field, which may be developed by piping gas from it to the Mexilhão platform and then transferring it for treatment to a plant located on the coast of São Paulo state.
Petrobras and its partners hold 40,663 sq km of exploratory concessions in the basin. The majority (52%) of the concession is located in São Paulo state, while the remainder is located in the states of Rio de Janeiro (35%), Santa Catarina (7%) and Paraná (6%).
01/12/2006
