Petrobras’ May oil production in Brazil averaged 1.975 million barrels per day (bpd), up 2.2% from an average of 1.933 million bpd in April. Including the production operated by Petrobras for its partners in Brazil, the volume reached the 2.092 million bpd mark, up 2.9% from the previous month’s production of 2.034 million bpd.

The company’s oil and natural gas production in Brazil in the same month was 2.387 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed), indicating a 2.2% rise from April (2.335 million boed). Including the production operated by Petrobras for its partner companies in Brazil, the volume reached 2.558 million boed, up 2.9% from April’s production of 2.487 million boed.

The start-up of new wells on platforms P-58 (Parque das Baleias), P-63 (Papa-Terra), P-55 (Roncador) as well as the start-up of platform P-62 (Roncador), all in the Campos Basin, contributed to the rise in production. Overall, 22 wells (14 for oil and gas production and eight for water injection) will be interconnected to P-62 within the next few months. This FPSO (floating production storage and offloading) unit has the capacity to process up to 180 thousand barrels of oil and 6 million cubic meters of natural gas per day.

Pre-salt records

In May, the pre-salt production in the Santos and Campos basins rose 8.8% to 447 thousand bpd, setting yet another monthly record. On May 31, a new pre-salt daily production record of 482 thousand bpd was established. These volumes include the production operated by Petrobras for its partners.

The pre-salt records stem from a rise in production on platform P-58 and the excellent performance of other production wells in that region, most notably Lula and Sapinhoá fields, where flow rates above 30 thousand bpd per well have been achieved consistently.

Installation of the last of four buoyancy-supported risers (BSR), pioneer pipeline support technology through submerged buoys, was completed on May 9. The wells producing for FPSOs Cidade de São Paulo and Cidade de Paraty are being interconnected to these buoys.

Maintenance shutdowns of platforms

According to the long term planning, scheduled maintenance shutdowns were implemented in some platforms in May, the most relevant of which was P-51. The unit, which operates in Marlim South field, in Campos Basin, was shut down from April 28 to May 12 for maintenance and equipment inspection. Consequently, on average, 24 thousand bpd were not produced in May at this unit.

The Operational Efficiency Increase Program (Proef), initiated in 2012, has been showing excellent results: the production systems of the Campos Basin Operations Unit (UO-BC) ended May with the highest operational efficiency rate of the last 47 months, at 81.2%. Currently, six Maintenance and Safety Units (UMSs) carry out platform support activities at the UO-BC, with the objective of sustaining efforts to improve operational efficiency.

On May 5, Petrobras broadened this program to include the Espírito Santo Operations Unit (UO-ES) with the aim of ensuring that the unit retains its high rate of efficiency over the next few years, similar to UO-Rio.

It should also be noted that the efficiency rates for the new platforms that came on line in the pre-salt cluster of the Santos Basin reached 96.2% in May.

New platforms to start-up in 2014

New production systems will go on stream in 2014 to ensure sustained production growth, as outlined in the Petrobras’ 2014-2018 Business and Management Plan, which has set a 7.5% rise by the end of 2014, with a margin of tolerance of one percentage point upwards or downwards.

In the second half of the year, the P-61 platform will go on stream on Papa-Terra field (Campos Basin post-salt), which will be interconnected to the Tender Assisted Drilling (TAD) semisubmersible platform SS-88, whose offshore installation activities are in progress. In addition, FPSOs Cidade de Mangaratiba, on Lula/Iracema field, and Cidade de Ilhabela, on Sapinhoá field, both in the Santos Basin pre-salt, will be installed by the end of the year.

PLSV Seven Waves, which was incorporated into the Petrobras fleet on April 28, started-up on May 14, increasing the fleet to 14 vessels currently in operation. Another five vessels are expected to arrive by the end of 2014.

Natural gas production

In May, natural gas production reached 65.4 million cubic meters per day surpassing the previous month’s production of 64 million m³/d by 2.2%. The total production operated by Petrobras, including the share operated for its partners, was 73.960 million m³/d, up 2.9% from April.

Production abroad in May equivalent to 8.4% of Petrobras total

In May, production abroad averaged 218.4 thousand boed, representing 8.4% of the company’s production, which totaled 2.605 million boed in the same period.

Total oil and natural gas extraction abroad fell 3.1% in May to 218.4 thousand boed, down from 225.4 thousand boed in the previous month. This was largely due to the completion of the transfer of onshore assets in Colombia, divestment announced in 2013, which led May’s oil production of 121 thousand bpd to be down 6.1% from the previous month’s production of 128.9 thousand bpd.

Natural gas production abroad was 16.547 million m³/d, up 0.9% from April’s production of 16.395 million m³/d, due to higher sales of Bolivian gas to the Brazilian market.

Production reported to the ANP

The total production reported to Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) in May 2014 was 9,785,640.85 m³ of oil and 2,410,421,380 m³ of gas. This production corresponds to the total output of the concessions where Petrobras is the operator. It does not include shale volumes, LNG and partners’ output where Petrobras is not the operator.