Offshore staff
RIO DE JANEIRO – Petrobras has highlighted some recent innovations and efficiency gains related to the Libra field development in the presalt Santos basin.
Collaboration between the partners in the pursuit of the technologies to maximize the project’s value has helped lower the break-even price by around $13/bbl.
Actions have focused on cost optimization and increased recovery as part of the “Libra@35” project, designed to achieve a break-even price of $35/bbl.
Among the initiatives completed is a reduction of 460 days in the appraisal phase, which represented earnings of $360 million. This followed optimization of information acquisition during the exploration and appraisal phase.
Another initiative was the use of a simplified design for intelligent completion – a technique to track the performance of remotely-controlled wells – leading to gains of seven to 18 days in this activity.
In addition, the use of a WAG (water/alternating gas) loop, under which two water/gas injector wells are connected into one loop, led to reduced use of flexible lines, with savings of $300 million.
Finally, the consortium plans to involve suppliers for the Libra 4 project involved from the project’s design phase, in order to reduce investment in equipment and installation of subsea systems by 30%.
Projected savings from this initiative will be around $400 million.
Petrobras operates theLibra consortium in partnership with Shell, Total, CNPC, and CNOOC.
In a separate development, Petrobras reports that the President of the Federal Regional Court of the 5th Region in Brazil hassuspended an injunction interrupting the transfer of Petrobras’ stake in the BM-S-8 exploration block (Carcará field) to Statoil.
As a result, Statoil is cleared to proceed with exploration at Carcará.
05/05/2017
