Petrobras to focus on its domestic operations in pre salt areas
Friday, 30 Oct 2009
BNamericas reported that Brazil's federal oil company Petrobras will be keeping its focus on its domestic operations because of the magnitude of oil discoveries made in the prolific pre salt areas.
Mr Gustavo Barbosa CFO of the Petrobras America subsidiary, on the sidelines of the Oil & Gas Outlook LatAm 2009 conference, said that "You're not going to see Petrobras drilling aggressively outside Brazil. The focus will be in Brazil, but we definitely want to create value out of our international holdings. We're not ruling out anything."
Mr Barbosa, commenting on the Tiber discovery, said that "We're moving forward now, and we're going to be drilling appraisal wells there and put together a production plan with the operators. It's going to take time. The Brazilian discoveries are so huge that the natural process is to allocate more capital to Brazil. You have a huge asset in front of you, one that can potentially double the size of your reserves. Naturally resources should be allocated to these huge efforts. But we're not going to forget our US holdings. Definitely not."
Petrobras, meanwhile, expects production from the prolific offshore pre salt areas to reach 1.3 million barrels per day by 2017. The company is planning to invest USD 111 billion in the pre salt areas by 2020.
Petrobras' domestic oil production is expected to average 2.05 million barrels per day in 2009, while international oil production will reach 142,000 barrels per day. Domestic gas production in 2009 will average 463,000boe/d, and international gas production is expected to average 103,000boe/d.
Production is expected to increase 8.8% annually through 2013 and then 7.5% annually through 2020, when domestic oil production will reach 3.92 million barrels per day. Domestic gas production in 2020 should reach 1.18Mboe/d, and international oil and gas production will hit 632,000boe/d.
CAPEX spending is expected to total USD 174 billion from 2009-13. Petrobras' proven reserves totaled 14.1Bboe at the end of 2008. The Santos and Campos pre salt basins should add an additional 10.6 to 16Bboe of new reserves.
