Brazil's Pre-Salt Hits New Record
Brazil’s upstream regulator ANP said April 2 that pre-salt production in February hit a new record of 1.763mn barrels of oil equivalent/day, an increase of 2.3% over the previous month and amounting to 53.3% of Brazil’s total production.
That split out into 1.408mn b/d oil and 56mn m3/d gas produced through 83 wells. The combined volume surpassed the previous record of 1.723mn boe/d in January 2018 and more records are expected to be set this year. Brazil’s total oil and gas production in February 2018 was 2.617mn b/d and 110mn m3/d. The gas figure was 2.3% less than the previous month, but 3% higher than in February 2017.
Gas sold to the market in February 2018 was 60.5mn m3/d, of which about five-sixths came from offshore and one-sixth from onshore. In addition, 27.4mn m3/d were reinjected to oilfields, 13.3mn m3/d were used as fuel on platforms, and 3.6mn m3/d were flared. The Lula pre-salt field in the offshore Santos basin was the biggest this February both in terms of oil and gas production, at 850,000 b/d and 36.2mn m3/d gas.
In the past 12 months, the month with the highest sales gas figure was October 2017 (70.1mn m3/d out of a total 114.6mn m3/d produced) while the lowest was March 2017 (56.4mn m3/d out of 101.3mn m3/d).
The IEA said in October 2017 that Brazil would become a net oil exporter in 2017, and export almost 1mn b/d to world markets by 2022 as new offshore fields start producing.
Brazil began LNG imports in 2009; these peaked in 2014 at 5.3mn metric tons (6.9bn m3/yr) according to industry association GIIGNL but fell to 1.5mn mt in 2016. An April 2017 OIES study highlighted how these have been declining because of the increasing contribution from Brazil's own gas production. A fourth Brazilian LNG import terminal is expected to start up in 2020, supplied by an Exxon/Qatari joint venture and dedicated to a new 1.5-GW gas-fired plant.