Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 11 2023

LatAmOil BRAZIL LatAmOil

Rystad Energy: Petrobras gears up for

Equatorial Margin exploration campaign

BRAZIL’S national oil company (NOC) Petro- Nemo-1, a shaft at a block with large prospective
bras aims to replicate Guyana’s success at the resources assigned to France’s TotalEnergies.
Stabroek block by unlocking its Equatorial Mar- Then between 2024 and 2026, the report says,
gin with an exploration campaign beginning Petrobras aims to drill more than seven wells
this year and continuing into the second half of in Foz do Amazonas, four in Barreirinhas and
the decade, Rystad Energy has noted in its new potentially one more in Pitu Oeste, where the
2023 Brazil Market Outlook. Pitu discovery was made in 2014.
In the document, the Norwegian consul- Petrobras believes that these regions may
tancy noted that this campaign will target sev- hold more than 7bn barrels of oil equivalent
eral basins, including Barreirinhas, Ceará, Foz (boe), Rystad noted in its report. To date, Exx-
do Amazonas, Para-Maranhão and Potiguar. It onMobil, the operator of the Stabroek block,
referenced Petrobras’ latest strategic plan, which has discovered more than 11bn boe in Guyana’s
stated that the company will spend nearly $3bn offshore zone. ™
on exploration work in the Equatorial Margin
basins between 2023 and 2027, equivalent to
half of its projected investment budget of $6bn
for this period.
The investment programme will begin this
year, as three of the 15 wells that Petrobras has
said that it plans to drill in the Campos, Santos,
Sergipe-Alagoas, Potiguar and Foz do Ama-
zonas basins lie within the Equatorial Margin
region. “We have identified three high-impact
wells based on the resources being targeted, the
basins where they are being drilled (emerging
basin) and their priority ranking in the opera-
tor’s regional strategy,” Rystad said in a statement
announcing the publication of its report.
It identified the three wells in question as
Morpho-1, a shaft drilled at a block assigned to
Petrobras in the Foz do Amazonas basin; Mola-
1, a high-priority shaft at a block assigned to
Malaysia’s Petronas in the Campos basin; and The Equatorial Margin basins could hold as much as 7bn boe (Image: TGS)

Five European majors seek to block

Brazilian government’s oil export tax

FIVE European majors – Equinor (Norway), weak economy.
Galp (Portugal), Repsol (Spain), Shell (UK) and In response, the Brazilian subsidiaries of the
TotalEnergies (France) – have raised objections five majors sought legal redress.
to the Brazilian government’s decision to impose Shell complained in a statement emailed to
a temporary tax on oil exports, filing an injunc- Bloomberg that the government had imposed
tion in a bid to halt the policy change. the four-month tax without making an effort to
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Sil- consult with the oil and gas industry stakehold-
va’s administration announced its plan to intro- ers ahead of time. This move has raised doubts
duce a 9.2% levy on oil exports last week, saying about future investments and could make Bra-
the tax would remain in place for four months zil’s oil industry less competitive, it said in the
to help shore up public finances and counter a statement.

Week 11 15•March•2023 www. NEWSBASE .com P11