MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

British Gas plays the Brazil card and begins oil production in pre-salt Santos basin

BG plans to extract a third of its world oil production from Brazil by 2020

British Gas started oil production at the Sapinhoa field off Brazil, one of the “Big Five” discoveries in the pre-salt Santos Basin. Along with Petrobras and Repsol, BG plans to pump an initial 25.000 barrels a day from the deposit in BM-S-9 Block, the England-based producer said in a statement.

Sapinhoa holds about 2.1 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas, according to Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil and gas producer.

The Cidade de Sao Paulo floating production, storage and offloading, or FPSO, will reach peak output in the first half of 2014.

BG slumped the most on record last October 31 after saying output growth would stall in 2013 following delays at projects in the US, North Sea, Brazil and Egypt.

The company plans to invest 30 billion dollars in Brazil, where it expects to pump about a third of its worldwide output by 2020.

Sapinhoa is the second of the so called “Big Five” fields in the BM-S-9 and BM-S-11 blocks where investors plan to install 15 FPSOs.

The Lula field, formerly known as Tupi, was the first find in the pre-salt deposit in the Santos Basin, and started production in October 2010.

BG has a 30% interest in the BM-S-9 Block, of which Petrobras is the operator with 45% and Repsol Sinopec Brasil has 25%.