Petrobras’ Exploration and Production Director, Solange Guedes, presented an overview of pre-salt in her talk entitled “Pre-Salt: What Has Been Done So Far and What is Coming Ahead” this Tuesday (May 5th) at the 2015 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, USA. Guedes showed the evolution of this new frontier, the challenges that have been overcome and the predictability of the results achieved, as well as emphasizing the financial viability of the pre-salt.

“We can guarantee that pre-salt is viable with a production cost of US$9 per barrel. If we consider that two production units are not yet producing at their total capacity, the production cost will be even lower. Our operational efficiency of around 92% has contributed significantly to our reaching these low costs,” she said.

The director stressed that pre-salt productivity has surpassed expectations. Average oil production in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin is now more than 25,000 barrels per day (bpd). Five wells each produce over 30,000 bpd. The Sapinhoá and Lula fields have wells whose average output may reach 40,000 bpd.

“These figures will certainly contribute to a reduction in the number of wells in our future pre-salt projects, which will be a major benefit to cost reduction.”

Together with its partners, Petrobras has developed technologies to make pre-salt production technically and financially viable. As a result, there are now 13 platforms producing in the pre-salt, including the most recently installed unit, FPSO Cidade de São Vicente, which is undertaking an extended well test in the “Cessão Onerosa” area.

“To conquer the pre-salt, we have invested heavily in technology.” The overcoming of challenges obtained through the development of innovative technologies led Petrobras to receive the OTC award in recognition of its achievements in pre-salt production.

This successful strategy to achieve results will be maintained, involving the development of new technologies, the acceleration of the learning curve and the standardization of equipment. “We will continue to drive forward innovation. More than ever, we need optimization-oriented technology.”

Tracing a brief history, Guedes noted that the development of the pre-salt in Campos Basin has been very fast, since infrastructure was already in place, with the first commercial production in 2008. In Santos Basin, however, the challenges have been much greater: no infrastructure was already in place, the reservoirs are located at water depths of up to 2,500 meters, under a 2,000-meter-thick salt layer, and the reservoirs have total depths of up to 7,000 meters. “Hard work, intense planning, discipline, strategy and teamwork with focus and determination have been fundamental,” said Guedes.

Integrated production development strategy

In the opening talk of the technical session entitled “Pre-Salt: 8-Year Journey from the Wildcat Well to more than Half-Million Barrels per Day,” held this Tuesday morning, Anelise Lara, Petrobras’ executive manager for the Libra asset, spoke about the company’s pre-salt development strategy.

Lara emphasized that, less than five years after the Lula pilot project began production, Petrobras has already reached oil output of more than 700,000 barrels per day in the pre-salt. “This is a significant achievement if compared with other offshore oil provinces across the world,” she said. The promising outlook resulting from the discoveries proved an opportunity to implement an integrated production development strategy. “Integration was crucial to accelerate projects and find cost reductions.”

This approach guaranteed a continued planning and execution process, starting from the exploration phase. The stages included the application of extended well tests to acquire data about the reservoirs’ dynamics, and the implementation of pilot projects to test different well configurations.

Ten pioneering technologies

The session about the pre-salt featured another six presentations by Petrobras executives about the technologies developed, such as buoyancy supported risers (BSRs), an intelligent completion system for managing reservoirs, and CO2 separation and re-injection systems.

The executives detailed 10 technological solutions that were decisive to the successful implementation of pre-salt projects, leading Petrobras to win the OTC Distinguished Achievement Award for Companies, Organizations, and Institutions – the highest recognition that an oil company can receive as an offshore operator.

Learn about the 10 award-winning technological solutions:

1 – First buoyancy supported riser – Buoy that sustains the pipes (risers) that take oil or gas from a well on the seabed to a platform, relieving the loads exerted on them. It permits the installation of risers even before the arrival of the production platform.

2 – First steel catenary riser – Rigid pipe that takes oil or gas from a well to a production platform.

3 – Deepest steel lazy wave riser (2,140 m, to be installed in the first quarter of 2015) – Another special type of pipe that transports oil and gas from a well to a platform, also installed in deeper waters.

4 – Deepest flexible riser (2,140 m) – Pipe that transfers oil or gas from a well on the seabed to a production platform. The flexible riser in question was installed at a record water depth.

5 – First application of flexible risers with integrated monitoring – First ever use in the industry of a system that uses fiber optics to monitor, in real time, the integrity of a flexible riser used to transfer oil and gas from a well to a platform.

6 – Record water depth (2,103 m) for drilling a well using the pressurized mud cap drilling technique with a dynamic positioning drilling rig – Well drilled in deepest ever waters using this technique, which is mandatory in situations of severe circulation losses during construction.

7 – First intensive use of intelligent completion in ultra-deep waters – This technology permits the optimization of reservoir management, guaranteeing the selectivity of two or more production horizons crossed by a well.

8 – First separation of CO2 associated with natural gas in ultra-deep waters (2,200 m) by injecting CO2 into production reservoirs – This technology makes it possible to separate CO2 from oil and natural gas, re-injecting it into reservoirs through special “injection wells,” in order to improve well productivity.

9 – Deepest CO2 gas injection well (water depth of 2,200 m) – With this well, Petrobras set a new record for CO2 injection well depth, in order to avoid CO2 emissions and raise oil and gas output.

10 – First use of alternate water and gas injection method in ultra-deep waters (2,200 m) – Water and gas are injected to raise the productivity of oil and gas reservoirs, keeping them pressurized.