Petrobras features tech for Roncador field at Offshore Technology Conference
  by: OilOnline
  Thursday, May 08, 2008

Petrobras is participating, from May 5 to 8, in Houston, Texas, in the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), the world's biggest offshore oil industry event. In the 2008 edition, Petrobras will feature its experience in developing and applying technologies for the Roncador field, in the Campos Basin. In 2007, the OTC brought together more than 67,000 people and some 2,400 companies from more than 30 countries.

On May 6, at 2 PM (4 PM in Brasília), technical papers prepared by Petrobras professionals about the Roncador field will be presented. Discovered in 1996, the field covers an area of 110 square kilometers and is situated at depths ranging from 1,500 to 1,900 meters, the deepest at which Petrobras produces oil and gas. The field's characteristics required the company to develop or adapt technologies not only to ensure oil and gas flow from the wells to the platforms but, also, efficient, safe production offloading. The technologies used at Roncador afforded Petrobras the OTC's Distinguished Achievement Award for Organizations, in 2001.

Because of its size, and due to the large volume of hydrocarbons it contains, production development at Roncador was designed to occur in four distinct modules, according to oil gravity (ranging from 18° to 31° API).

Production was kicked-off at the field in 1999, and the two first modules are currently in production (composed of the following units: FPSO-Brasil, P-52, and P-54). By December 2008, Petrobras expects to reach a production of 380,000 barrels of oil per day at Roncador, while the peak of production is expected for 2014, when the Company hopes to be lifting 480,000 barrels of oil per day there.

The pre-salt challenge

In addition to Roncador, another development that will be under the spotlight at the event are the recent oil and gas discoveries Petrobras made in the Santos Basin's pre-salt area, particularly the Tupi find. Located at a depth of 6,000 meters, from water surface to the underground layers, and below a thick layer of salt, this new exploratory frontier will change Brazil's relative position in the oil industry, ranking it among the countries that hold major hydrocarbon reserves.

As occurs in the Tupi region, where Petrobras operates in partnership with two other companies - BG (25%) and Galp Energia (10%) -, the company is positioned strategically as the main operator of this new exploratory frontier. Although the technological challenges are directly proportional to the grandiosity of these new discoveries in the pre-salt area, by late 2010 Petrobras will put the Tupi pilot project online, with an initial production of 100,000 barrels of oil and of some 3.5 million cubic meters of gas per day.

The company is currently developing the assessment plan of these new discoveries' potential and is getting ready, as early as next year, to commence Tupi reservoir long duration tests.

Exploration & Production in the Gulf of Mexico

By 2012, Petrobras intends to invest $15 billion abroad, 70% of which allotted to E&P. The United States will receive the biggest volume of these resources ($4.9 billion, or 32% of the total invested outside of Brazil).

In February 2007, Petrobras kicked-off production at the first well in the Cottonwood field, in the American sector of the Gulf of Mexico. Cottonwood is the first deepwater field (670 meters deep) developed and put into production by Petrobras, as the operator, abroad.

Petrobras holds stakes in two important discoveries made in the Gulf of Mexico, the Cascade and Chinook fields, situated in the Walker Ridge Quadrant. The fields will be operated by Petrobras, which will be the pioneer company, both in the production of this reservoir in ultra-deep waters, and in using an FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) platform in the region, the production of which is hoped to begin in 2010. Additionally, Petrobras has participation in the important Saint Malo and Stones discoveries, which are now in the assessment and study phase and are operated by Chevron and Shell, respectively.

The Company has also grown its presence in exploratory activities in the United States by participating in Lease Sales held by the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the American agency that regulates offshore activities. In March 2008, in Lease Sale 206, Petrobras was ranked among the main winners after placing the highest bids for 22 blocks, with a total investment of $179 million in two of the most competitive auctions ever held in the region. This sum was offered for blocks situated in central and eastern Gulf of Mexico, with the spotlight on deep and ultra-deep waters. When the new concessions are confirmed by the MMS, Petrobras' exploratory project portfolio will add up to 369 blocks, 202 of which the Company is the operator of.

Petrobras at the OTC

Internationally renowned as one of the exploration and production leaders in deep and ultra-deep waters, Petrobras has already been granted three awards by the OTC. In 2007, Petrobras Research Center (Cenpes) engineer Marcos Assayag was granted the Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals for his contributions to the development of technologies for oil production in deep and ultra-deep waters.

In 2001, the technologies used at the Roncador Field led Petrobras to win the Distinguished Achievement Award for Organizations. In 1992, the Company had already received the same distinction for the technologies applied at the Marlim Field, in the Campos Basin.

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