Offshore staff
(Brazil)- Brazil's energy company Petrobras plans to conclude a business plan by the start of the second half of this year that will allow the Santos basin to produce 300,000 boe by 2010, according to Santos basin Business Unit General Manager Jose Marcusso.
"The Santos basin is very strategic for the country and will become one of the three largest oil producing districts in the country," Marcusso said. The other two districts are the Campos and Espirito Santo basins. Its importance lies partly in its size: Santos contains Petrobras' 419-bcm Mexilhao gas field and the producing Merluza gas and oilfield.
Marcusso assumed his post in January this year, when Petrobras announced plans to invest $18 billion in the Santos basin over the next 10 years. Petrobras' E&P business is divided into eight business units, with the Santos unit the most recently created.
By the end of 2010, the company and its partners plan to produce 30 MMcm/d of natural gas and 100,000 b/d of oil from Santos, Marcusso said.
Santos has become attractive to Petrobras because of its proximity to the industrial hub of São Paulo, as well as the burgeoning demand for natural gas in the country. Although production at older fields like Merluza, Coral and Cavalo Marinho is ongoing, the large finds in Mexilhao were not registered until early 2000.
Petrobras is additionally counting on future production from the BS-500 block in the same basin, which it is currently appraising.
Mexilhao is scheduled to start production in 2008 at a rate of 8-9 MMcm/d. The basic feasibility studies for Mexilhao are concluded and have been approved by top Petrobras management. Complete feasibility studies are now expected to be approved sometime in April. The capital investment in the project was not disclosed by Marcusso.
Talks between Petrobras and Spanish oil company Repsol YPF on the Mexilhao exploration are ongoing. There is no deadline currently set for talks to end.
04/03/2006
