MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Petrobras pre-salt fields production climb to a new high in May: 1.1MMboe/d

Pre-salt production of oil and natural gas climbed to a new high, breaking the 1 MMb/d mark for the first time on May 8.

Petrobras’s oil production in Brazil averaged 2.16 MMboe/d in May, its fifth highest monthly figure to date. The growth was due mainly due increases from the company’s pre-salt fields, with new wells connected to the FSPO Cidade de Maricá serving the Lula field in the Santos basin.

 In addition, various platforms that underwent scheduled stoppage and corrective maintenance in April returned to normal service.

Pre-salt production of oil and natural gas operated by Petrobras climbed to a new high, averaging 1.15 MMboe/d, with the company’s pre-salt oil output breaking the 1 MMb/d mark for the first time on May 8.

The company achieved this landmark 10 years after discovering these deposits. There are currently 52 producing wells connected to seven large production systems in the Santos basin and eight production systems in the Campos basin.

Petrobras has gradually brought down extraction costs from its pre-salt wells to less than US$8/boe, while the average time taken to construct a well in these regions has fallen 71% from 2010 to 89 days currently. High productivity of the pre-salt reservoirs, resulting in fewer wells per production system and improved well construction efficiency, has helped the company contain costs.