The National Agency of Petroleum (ANP), reported inApril 4th, that the production of oil and gas in the pre-salt fields recorded an increase of six percent in February, compared with the previous month. This was just days after the organization announced they are planning investments of R$1.24 billion in the four-year period of 2015-2018.

ANP said in a statement (April 4th), “The production of pre-salt, coming from 54 wells was 873,500 barrels per day of oil and 34.6 million cubic meters per day of natural gas, totaling 1.091 million of barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), an increase of six percent over the previous month.”

According to the agency, the natural gas utilization in the month was 95.2 percent. “The burning of gas in February was 4.7 million cubic meters per day, an increase of 43.8 percent compared to the previous month and 44.3 percent over the same month in 2015. The increase in burning natural gas in the month was mainly due to the commissioning of the FPSO Cidade de Marica platform, which started operations in February.”

Total production of oil and natural gas in Brazil, in February, according to the ANP totaled 2,950 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. On the other hand, the total oil production in February 2016 was about 2.335 million barrels per day, a decrease of 0.8 percent compared to the previous month and 4.0 percent over the same month in 2015.

On April 1st, the ANP announced they foresee investments of R$1.24 billion in the four-year period of 2015-2018, according to the new phase of the Multi-Year Plan of Geology Studies and Geophysics agency. In the first phase, between 2007 and 2014, the total investment was R$1.1 billion.

Of this total, R$820 million is the budget of the agency, which depend on the federal government releasing funds, and R$420 million can be realized by the private sector or research and development resources.

Some of the projects included in the plan are new seismic surveys in the basins of rivers Parnaíba, Paraná and Parecis; the exploratory well drilling in pre-salt, among others.