Page 15 - LatAmOil Week 43 2020

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Petrobras revises 2020 production

forecast upward to 2.84mn bpd

BRAZIL’S national oil company (NOC) Petro- 32%, while in the other areas – post-salt, shallow
bras has raised its average production forecast waters and onshore – there was a contraction,”
for 2020 by 2.5% to 2.84mn barrels of oil equiv- it added.
alent per day (boepd), with oil accounting for One of these pre-salt sites – Búzios, which
2.28mn barrels per day (bpd) of the total. is the largest deepwater crude oil deposit in
The state-run major had originally antic- the world – hit multiple monthly production
ipated that total output would reach 2.7mn records during the third quarter. Total output
boepd this year, with oil making up 2.2mn bpd reached an all-time high of 615,000 bpd in July,
of the total. But it has revised its targets now that and one of the field’s wells yielded just over
yields are climbing back up towards the levels 69,000 bpd in September, a record-high volume
prevailing before the advent of the coronavirus for a single well.
(COVID-19) pandemic. Many of the NOC’s Also in September, the pre-salt field known
fields suspended production in response to the as Tupi saw its accumulated production reach
outbreak but have now resumed development 2bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe). It reached
operations. this milestone two decades after the signing of
In a report released last week, Petrobras said its concession contract, Petrobras noted. ™
that it had extracted 2.952mn boepd of crude oil,
natural gas liquids (NGLs) and natural gas in the
third quarter. This was up by 5.4% on the figure
recorded in the second quarter, it noted.
The company also said that its offshore pre-
salt fields had seen crude production rise to
1.651mn bpd in the third quarter, up by 8.1% on
the previous quarter.
The increase stemmed mainly from an
improvement in the operational efficiency
of platforms at the Búzios field, as well as the
ramp-up of production platforms at the Tupi
and Atapu oilfields, the company said.
“Petrobras’ operational performance in [the
third quarter] was very good, considering the
challenging scenario imposed by the COVID-
19 pandemic,” the firm said.
“Our oil and gas production in Brazil grew
by 9.0% in the first nine months of this year,
compared to [the same period of] last year. The
production of the pre-salt fields increased by Búzios hit multiple output records in Q3-2020 (Image: Comunica Bacia de Santos)

Australia’s Karoon gets green

light for Brazil offshore purchase

AUSTRALIAN oil and gas company Karoon the end of this month, subject to certain condi-
Energy has received the go-ahead from Brazil’s tions, including floating production, storage and
National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and off-loading (FPSO) vessel charter assignment,
Biofuels (ANP) to acquire the Baúna offshore the firm said. “Karoon is aiming to close the
oilfield from state-run Petrobras. transaction on October 30, 2020, and will keep
The company, which operates in Australia, the market updated on progress,” the company
Brazil and Peru, hopes to finalise the deal at said in a press statement.

Week 43 29•October•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15