MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil closer to oil self sufficiency

Brazil moved closer to oil self-sufficiency this week when President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva christened Brazil's largest offshore rig at a shipyard in Rio de Janeiro.

The oil and natural-gas platform, named P-50, is scheduled to leave the Mauá Jurong shipyard in mid-December, more than a year behind schedule, and start production early next year, government-run oil corporation Petrobras announced.

??The P-50 will guarantee Brazil's self-sufficiency in oil in 2006,'' Petrobras President Sergio Gabrielli said at the ceremony at the Mauá Jurong shipyard.

The platform will pump oil from the Albacoara Leste field in the rich Campos basin 150 kilometres offshore. It is expected to reach peak output of 180,000 barrels a day in August 2006, said Petrobras' top financial executive, Almir Barbassa.

The platform is also expected to produce six million cubic metres of natural gas per day. Petrobras, which pumps 97% of Brazil's oil, saw domestic crude output reach 1.72 million barrels per day in October, just short of domestic demand.

The P-50 and another, smaller oil rig slated to go on stream next year will raise national production to 1.9 million bpd in 2006, meeting domestic needs and allowing Brazil to export a net 100,000 barrels of oil and oil products per day.

Petrobras has plans to reach a daily production of 2.3 million barrels by 2010 thus ensuring "long term sustainable" self sufficiency said Mr. Gabrielli. This will demand investments in the range of 39 billion US dollars until 2010, most of which in the state of Rio do Janeiro where the oil and maritime support industry are concentrated.

"This will enable us to completely modify the country's conditions because whenever there's an international oil crisis this is synonymous of pandemonium for us. That is why this is such an important advance for the Brazilian economy and its targets of sustained growth and job creation", stressed Mr. Gabrielli.

Mining and Energy minister Silas Rondeau underlined that the new rig will eventually produce as much oil as Brazil imports daily from Algeria, 100.000 barrels, and Nigeria, 80.000 barrels, the country's two main suppliers.