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It also quoted QatarEnergy’s president and from Sépia and Atapu within the framework of
CEO, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, who also serves as the Second Transfer of Rights Surplus Produc-
Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs, as tion-Sharing Bidding Round.
saying: “We are delighted to reach this important Atapu came on stream in June 2020, with
milestone and close Sépia’s key definitive agree- upstream operations supported by the floating
ments. We look forward to working with our production, storage and off-loading (FPSO)
partners Petrobras, TotalEnergies and Petronas unit P-70. The vessel reached its full oil produc-
to progress the next phase of development.” tion capacity of 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) in
The TOR area covers a 2,800-square km sec- June 2021 and can also treat 6mn cubic metres
tion of the Santos basin that encompasses the per day of natural or associated gas.
Atapu, Búzios, Itapu and Sépia oilfields. It lies Sépia, meanwhile, has been in produc-
within the pre-salt zone of Brazil’s offshore sec- tion since August 2021. Petrobras has already
tor and may hold up to 20bn barrels of crude oil. deployed one dedicated FPSO vessel at the field,
Last December, the Brazilian government held QatarEnergy noted, and aims to set up a second
a new round of auctions for surplus volumes unit to boost production capacity. ™

ECUADOR
Ecuador’s energy minister resigns

ECUADOR’S Energy Minister Juan Carlos
Bermeo stepped down from his cabinet post
last week, announcing his decision in a letter to
President Guillermo Lasso.
In the letter, Bermeo stated that “his cycle
in front of the entity has finished” and said he
would be returning to the private sector. He did
not give any further reasons for his decision.
Filling Bermeo’s position is Vice Minister
of Mining Xavier Vera-Grunauer, who was
sworn in to his new role of energy minister on
April 28. Vera-Grunauer, a civil engineer who
earned a doctorate degree in geotechnics and
civil engineering from the University of Cali-
fornia-Berkeley, has accumulated more than 21
years of mining consulting experience across
Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and the US. He is assum-
ing the role of energy minister at a time when Bermeo’s successor, Xavier Vera-Grunauer (Photo: Twitter/@RecNaturalesEC)
Ecuador is looking to implement several major
initiatives across the electricity, mining and such contracts. The Ecuadorian government
petroleum sectors. plans to complete the talks, as well as the pro-
With respect to hydrocarbons, one of Ecua- cess of converting the deals, by September of
dor’s key priorities is increasing crude output to this year.
580,000 barrels per day, or 22% on the year-ago In addition to boosting output, Ecuador is
figure of about 475,000 bpd, by the end of 2022. also looking to initiate production at undevel-
The South American country has already man- oped blocks. To this end, the government is
aged to increase crude production in the first seeking to launch the Intracampos 2 tender by
quarter of the year, with yields reaching an aver- next June. These auctions will cover six blocks
age of 494,720 bpd in March. near the nation’s north-eastern border with
The country is also looking to ramp up its Colombia that produce around 22,000-28,000
local oil production by switching 23 fee-based bpd.
oil service contracts to production-sharing The South American nation is also active on
agreements (PSAs). the natural gas front, as it is looking to sell off
Quito began negotiations on April 19 with Amistad, a depleted gas field, in order to revive
15 production and service companies that hold output. ™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 18 05•May•2022