Petrobas' pre-salt production has reached 40% of all the state-oil firm's production in Brazil and 12 more systems are due online in the Santos Basin alone by 2020, the firm has said.
The milestone was reached as over all pre-salt production set new highs, at 1 MMb/d, doubling output compared to July 2014, at 500,000b/d and from zero 10 years ago.
It is news worth celebrating for Petrobras, which took its largest quarterly net loss in Q4 last year, at US$10.2 billion, amid write downs related to the Lava Jato bribery scandal as well as low oil prices.
However, Petrobras says average lifting costs have declined steadily in recent years, from US$9.1/boe in 2014 to US$8.3/boe in 2015 and under US$8/boe in Q1 this year.
Because of the high productivity of the reservoirs, fewer wells are needed, the firm says. Improvements in well construction efficiency have also reduced in drilling and completion time: the average time taken to construct an offshore well in the Santos Basin pre-salt was approximately 310 days up to 2010. By 2015, this period had fallen to 128 days, and in the first five months of this year it was around 89 days.
And by 2020, the company plans to have 12 new production systems in the Santos Basin pre-salt.
In the Santos Basin, new production system is due to start up in Q3, in the Lula Central area of Lula field, and interconnected to FPSO Cidade de Saquarema. This platform will be capable of processing up to 150,000b/d of oil and compressing 6 MMcm of gas.
Another large system, connected to FPSO Cidade de Caraguatatuba, will be deployed in Lapa field in Q3 this year, with the capacity to produce up to 100,000 b/d of oil and to compress up to 5 MMc/d of gas.
"Pre-salt production projects are now Petrobras’ main focus of investment, due to their strategic importance and high profitability. Together with other projects in our portfolio, they guarantee greater predictability for our production targets and curve," says the company’s exploration and production director, Solange Guedes.
There are currently seven large production systems operating in the Santos Basin pre-salt, interconnected with floating production, storage and offloading platforms (FPSOs):
Another eight production systems are operating in both the pre-salt and post-salt layers in Campos Basin. Six of these units were already producing in the post-salt, but as they had spare processing capacity, they have been used to quickly interconnect new wells drilled in the deepest parts of the pre-salt.
They are interconnected to platform P-48, operating in Barracuda-Caratinga field; P-53 and P-20, both in Marlim Leste field; FPSO Capixaba, in Baleia Franca field; P-43, operating in Barracuda field; and FPSO Cidade de Niterói, in Marlim Leste field.
Two other units have been deployed to operate mainly in the pre-salt, in the Jubarte, Baleia Azul and Baleia Franca fields: FPSO Cidade de Anchieta (2012); and platform P-58 (2014).
Of the 10 most productive wells in Brazil, nine are in the pre-salt area. The most productive one is located in Lula field, and it produces 36,000 b/d on average.
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