Page 15 - LatAmOil Week 33

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Total launches third phase of

Mero project offshore Brazil

FRANCE’S Total said last week that the consor- Production.
tium set up to develop the offshore Libra block The project “is in line with Total’s growth
had opted to move ahead with the third phase of strategy in Brazil’s deep-offshore, based on giant
work at the Mero field. projects enabling production at competitive
In a statement, Total said that the group cost, resilient in the face of oil price volatility,”
would use a floating production, storage and he added.
off-loading (FPSO) vessel for the project. The Total is targeting production of 150,000 bpd
Mero 3 FPSO will be able to handle 180,000 bar- in Brazil by 2025, Breuillac said. The company
rels per day (bpd) of liquids and is expected to has been present in the South American country
start up by 2024. for more than 40 years, and its Brazilian produc-
Total and the other companies involved tion averaged 16,000 bpd in 2019.
in the Libra project have already made invest- The French major’s Brazilian portfolio cur-
ment decisions for the first two phases of the rently includes 24 blocks, including 10 where it
Mero field. They expect the Mero 1 FPSO to serves as operator. Last October, a Total-led con-
begin operating in 2021 and the Mero 2 FPSO sortium was awarded Block C-M-541, located
to follow suit in 2023. Both platforms will have a in the pre-salt Campos Basin, in a state-run oil
capacity of 180,000 bpd, according to the French and gas bidding round. The consortium also
company’s statement. included Petrobras and Qatar Petroleum. ™
Mero lies 180 km off the coast of Rio de
Janeiro State within the Libra block. Libra is in
the pre-salt section of the Santos Basin, one of
Brazil’s largest sources of hydrocarbons.
The Mero field has been in pre-production
since 2017. The consortium has been using the
Pioneiro de Libra FPSO, which has a capacity of
50,000 bpd, at the site.
Brazil’s national oil company (NOC) Petro-
bras operates the Libra consortium and owns
a 40% share. Its partners are: Total (20%); Shell
Brasil (20%), a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell
(UK/Netherlands); and two state-owned Chi-
nese firms, China National Offshore Oil Corp.
(CNOOC) and China National Petroleum
Corp. (CNPC), with 10% each.
“The decision to launch Mero 3 marks a new
milestone in the large-scale development of
the vast oil resources of the Mero field, [which
is] estimated at 3 to 4bn barrels,” said Arnaud
Breuillac, Total’s president of Exploration & Mero lies within the Libra block (Image: Petrobras)

ARGENTINA
YPF reports revenues, income,

production down in Q2-2020

ARGENTINA’S national oil company (NOC) (COVID-19) pandemic.
YPF has said that its financial and operational In a statement on its quarterly results, the
performance deteriorated in the second quar- company reported that it had incurred a loss of
ter of 2020, largely as a result of the coronavirus ARS85bn ($1.17bn) between April and June.

Week 33 19•August•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15