With a record production of 500 thousand barrels/day of oil, 360 million barrels of oil have already been extracted from the Basin of Santos since 2008. The region will be in charge of half Petrobras’ production as of 2018. Such promising perspective opposes to last months’ negative news
Nildo Carlos Oliveira
About eight years after the first oil deposits were found under the pre-salt layer at the Basin of Santos, Petrobras and associated companies inform that they have broken the record of 500 thousand barrels of oil per day (bpd).
The company records understandable euphoria by realizing that to reach such a level of production it worked 31 years non-stop since its foundation, in 1953, by Getulio Vargas, until 1984. And there is something else it deems expressive. In 1984 that state company reached that production volume after operating 4 thousand wells. That result means that the pre-salt layer is in charge of 22% of the company’s production.
Technicians with that state company are assessing that as of 2018 those deposits will be responsible for over 50% of the production. José Formigli, director of exploration and production, discloses, for instance, that the production accumulated in the region from 2008 to this date has reached 360 million barrels of oil (oil and gas). Practice, according to him, showed that it was possible to demystify some ideas current at that time, when it was said that the drills used in the drilling jobs would end up by melting when operations in the salt layer were intensified. Nothing like that happened and the daily services moved ahead without setbacks.
The company informs that the wells set up at the region of the deposits have had productivity beyond the international average. The average production per well in commercial operation in the pool of the Basin of Santos has been about 25 thousand barrels/day of oil and, according to the company, bigger than the one recorded in the North Sea, which is 15 thousand barrels/day of oil. And even bigger than that in the Gulf of Mexico.
Structured technology
Petrobras has reached the reserves under the pre-salt layer with a carefully structured technology. The pre-salt is a layer of porous rocks located from 5 to 6 thousand meters below the bottom of the sea and approximately 400 km far from the coast. Local temperature varies from 80ºC to 100ºC. All that added to a high pressure cause rocks to change and obtain elastic properties, which makes it difficult to drill into them. In order not to allow the drilling site to close and not to lose some wells, the operators’ teams have to coat them quickly.
To reach those layers, the state company had to plan several working phases, each one with different characteristics. The tube that goes from the platform to the bottom of the sea, for instance, called riser, had to be able to cope with seismic waves, sea currents and the fluctuation of the base.
“But we got there”, says a technician, remembering that another problem the teams had to face was the corrosion caused by sulfur dioxide, one of the biggest difficulties in the exploration of those fields. José Formigli pointed out that when drilling an oil well, it is not a vertical hole, but a path mathematically planned in order to enable obtaining the best yield possible. “One of our biggest difficulties in the pre-salt layer is to change the direction of the drills without causing the well to dismantle and fall down into the well. To reach it, the deepest tube is 6 thousand meters long as far as the surface and has a diameter of 10 cm and 20 cm.
The company informs that the number of equipment and raw materials to extract oil and gas from the pre-salt layer is very large. So much so that from 2014 to 2020, to build the production platforms, probes and supporting boats, 360 thousand valves for general use will have to be produced, in addition to 60 thousand t of flanges and joints; 27 thousands control valves; 1.700 heat exchangers; 13,500 km of cables to control instrumentation and telecommunications; plus 5 thousand centrifuge pumps; plus 440 wet “Christmas trees”; 4,490 km of flexible lines; 2,170 filters; 490 centrifuge compressors; 513 towing trucks and 1,350,000 t of structural steel. .
Platforms and probes under construction
Currently in the country there are ten self-owned production platforms being built to be sent to the pre-salt fields. Those are eight Replicant FPSO (Floating Units of Production, Storage and Transfer) and four onerous cession FPSO. In the case of the replicants, the hulls are being built at Rio Grande Shipyard (RS), the modules will be supplied by jobsites Tomé-Ferrostaal (AL), DM/TKK Engenharia (SC) and IESA (RS), and also by shipyards Bras-FELS (RJ), OSX-UCN (RJ) and Jurong Aracruz (ES), these last three also in charge of integrating the units. For the onerous cession FPSO, converting the hulls is to be done at Inhaúma Shipyard (RJ), and the construction of the modules and integration of units will be done at shipyards EBR – Estaleiros do Brasil (RS), Honório Bicalho (RS) and Unidade Techint
Offshore (PR). The units will be delivered from 2016 to 2018, with 65% and 70% local contents.
Also for the operation in the pre-salt fields still this year (2014) should be delivered the chartered units FPSO Cidade de Ilhabela and FPSO Cidade de Mangaratiba, by shipyards Brasa (RJ) and BrasFELS (RJ), respectively. Both units had their hull converted abroad. However the activities to build modules and integrate the units happen in Brazil. The local content contract for the units is 65%.
Petrobras is to receive 28 units from 2015 to 2020, all built in the country by the following shipyards: BrasFELS (RJ), Jurong Aracruz (ES), Estaleiro Enseada do Paraguaçu (BA), Estaleiro Rio Grande (RS) and Estaleiro Atlântico Sul (PE). Local content of the units will be from 55% to 65%.
Company’s constructions and investments
Renata Baruzzi, executive engineering manager with Petrobras, informs that the Plan of Businesses and Management (PNG) 2013-2017disposes construction work in all segments where the company and its subsidiaries perform. Among the main ones currently undergoing in the country there are the type-FPSO platforms already mentioned, in addition to 28 drilling probes for the pre-salt layer. She also highlights the construction of Refinery Abreu e Lima, in Ipojuca (PE); the Petrochemical Compound of Rio de Janeiro (Comperj), in Itaboraí (RJ); the ships in the Program of Fleet Modernization and Expansion of Transpetro – Promef,
Four among them being Panamax, eight Gaseiros, 10 Suezmax and 20 Comboios – and the nitrogen fertilizer unit III in Três Lagoas (MS) and the natural-gas processing units in
Cabiúnas, Macaé (RJ).
“In parallel to the jobsites mentioned&rdq
uo;, says the manager, “I can inform that currently the project portfolio in the Plan of Businesses and Management (PNG) 2013-2017 totals US$236.7 billion investments among projects being implement and those under analysis”.
To her, the company’s investments and constructions continue to cause a very positive impact in the country. She points out: “Petrobras invests in research and development to increase local content, quality and productivity, and also technological innovations, safety and management of its undertakings. Thus, we are strengthening national engineering, enabling the consolidation of a policy of local content on competitive and sustainable bases”
Renata Baruzzi says that the first phase of Refinery Abreu e Lima may start operations in November this year. She believes that the unit will be able to process 230 thousand barrels of oil daily as soon as the second phase, which may be delivered in May 2015, starts operations.
Abreu e Lima should be Petrobras’ operational unit with the highest rate of conversion of oil into diesel: equivalent to 70% of the unit’s production. There, daily will be produced about 26 million liters of fuel with low-content sulfur (up to 10 parts per one million), diesel S-10 compatible with the international standards. The refinery will also produce other byproducts, such as petrochemical naphtha, oil coke and liquid oil gas (GLP). The units of reduction of atmospheric emissions will also generate sulfuric acid as a byproduct.
Fonte: Revista O Empreiteiro
