Brazil's oil and gas giant Petrobras announced a hydrocarbon discovery in the pre-salt Campos Basin offshore Rio de Janeiro state, some 200 kilometers from the coast and at a depth of 2,950 meters.
Oil majors are set to gather in Rio de Janeiro this Friday to unveil bids for stakes in Brazil’s high potential offshore areas ahead of elections that are casting a cloud of uncertainty over the industry.
Brazil’s oil regulator ANP has approved the applications of six companies—including Big Oil’s BP, Shell, and Total—to bid in next month’s oil auction of four blocks in the coveted pre-salt layer, ANP announced on Wednesday.
Brazilian oil workers began a 72-hour strike on Wednesday in a new blow to President Michel Temer following a nationwide trucker protest that has strangled Latin America's largest economy for over a week. The strike affecting several rigs, refineries, plants and ports is the latest challenge for state-led oil firm Petrobras, whose shares have tumbled nearly 30% in two weeks over fears that political interference would unwind more investor-focused policies.
The giant Libra field in Brazil’s pre-salt zone has started producing oil, French Total said on Monday without providing details about the production rate at the field.
Earlier on Friday a key Petrobras workers union voted to end a 20-day strike that disrupted output. Workers at the Sindipetro Norte Fluminense local, who had ignored the largest oil workers' union FUP's call to end the strike that started on November first, will return to work Friday evening at onshore operations, union spokesman Tezeu Bezerra.
Brazilian oil workers union local responsible for the bulk of the country's oil and gas output told its members on Tuesday to abandon Petrobras vessels operating in the Campos Basin, Brazil's most productive oil district.
Oil workers staging a national strike in Brazil said on Monday they had stopped all operations at 22 of state-controlled oil giant Petrobras's 44 rigs in the Campos basin, an offshore area that accounts for about 80% of the country's oil output. Oil workers declared a strike on Sunday.
Brazil's Subsalt Polygon, the offshore area that has already yielded some of the world's largest recent oil finds, may hold enough undiscovered petroleum and gas to supply the world's current oil needs for more than five years, researchers said.
After just four years in production, the Peregrino field in the Campos basin offshore Brazil has passed a significant milestone, with 100 million barrels of oil produced since April 2011. The field, jointly owned by Statoil and Chinese Sinochem, achieved the milestone on August 2.