MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Petrobras declares 19 new areas as “commercially viable”

Brazil's government owned oil corporation Petrobras declared as Commercially Viable 19 new areas (16 offshore and 3 onshore) in the Espírito Santo, Campos, and Santos Basins. A few of them have become new oil and/or natural gas fields, while others have been incorporated into existing neighboring fields.

Although the 19 areas are still subject to more detailed technical assessments by the National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuel Agency, it is estimated that Petrobras' share of the recoverable volumes will top-out at some 2.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of oil and gas in the three basins. Three areas Petrobras operates in the old BS-500 block, in the Santos Basin, were declared commercially viable, resulting in the Tambuatá, Pirapitanga and Carapiá oil and natural gas fields, while one area in the old BS-400 block was annexed to Mexilhão Field. It is estimated there are recoverable volumes of some 560 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in these areas. Meanwhile, four new offshore and three new onshore areas have been defined in the Espírito Santo Basin, all of which operated by Petrobras. The new Carapó and Camarupim gas fields, and two other natural gas and light oil areas that will be annexed to the Golfinho and Canapú fields, have been declared commercially viable. It is estimated there are recoverable volumes of some 168 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in these areas. Three new fields, Saíra, Seriema, and Tabuiaiá, have been defined onshore. Although they have slightly more modest volumes compared to the basin's offshore portion, these finds are nonetheless greatly important to maintain the Espírito Santo Basin's onshore production. Finally, eight new areas have been declared commercially viable in the Campos Basin: The Maromba field, in the old BC-20 block, operated by Petrobras in association with Chevron; the Carataí and Carapicu fields, in the old BC-30 block; and, in the old BC-60 block, the Catuá, Cacharel, Mangangá, and Pirambú fields, in addition to one area to be annexed to the Baleia Azul Field. The recoverable volumes are believed to top-out at about 1.37 million boe there. Earlier in the week Shell declared two new fields commercially viable in the Santos basin, off shore Rio do Janeiro. Petrobras holds 40% of the rights for these fields. Petrobras has proven oil and gas reserves in Brazil equivalent to 13.5 billion barrels and extracts sufficient to cover domestic consumption. In November Petrobras oil and gas daily production reached 2.3 million barrels with a 2.4% increase over the previous month. Of this total, 2.1 million bpd are domestic production, 1.8 million barrels of oil and 43 million cubic meters of natural gas, and the remaining 232.485 bpd are extracted from operations in Argentina, Angola, Bolivia, Ecuador, Gulf of Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.