Brazil's Pre-Salt Output Reaches New Record

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Written by Amir Richani for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--According to a monthly report from its Ministry of Energy, Brazil's pre-salt production reached an output of 3.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d) in April, about 18.3% more than during the same period last year and setting a new record for the country.

Pre-salt volumes represented 79.7% of the country's overall output and was generated from 164 offshore wells.

The nation's pre-salt production refers to the extraction of hydrocarbons located in deep waters beneath a layer of salt under the ocean floor. The activity is primarily focused on the Santos and Campos basins. The oil in the area was discovered in the mid-2000s, and since then, it has transformed the nation's energy prospects.

In the last year, Brazil has seen the startup and ramp-up of four new pre-salt floating production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs), with the newest one producing its first oil last month. In the next four years, Petrobras (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and its partners project developing eight more FPSOs, with five expected to come online after 2030. All these platforms are projected to come online in pre-salt areas in the Santos and Campos basins.

However, the bet on Brazil's increasing hydrocarbon production is not only coming from Petrobras. In recent weeks, BP (London, England) launched a new exploration campaign in the Santos Basin to search for oil in pre-salt assets acquired in 2022.

According to Brazil's production numbers, Tupi was the largest pre-salt producing oil field with an output of 1 million BOE/d, followed by Buzios with 917,00 BOE/d, and in third place was Mero with 646,000 BOE/d.

The Buzios field is expected to see a further increase in its output to 1.5 million BOE/d with the development of six new platforms by 2027.

Meanwhile, Petrobras and Shell plc (London, England) are currently studying the deployment of a fifth platform to the Mero field after 2030 also to boost the asset's production above the 1 million BOE/d mark.

With these plans, the South American nation is expected to continue beating pre-salt production volumes records as it becomes a larger oil producer and exporter.

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