Brazil sees monthly increase in oil & gas production, with lion’s share coming from Petrobras’ offshore fields

The Brazilian National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels (ANP) has published its monthly oil and natural gas production bulletin for August 2024, comprising consolidated data on national production.

Based on the data reported, the combined oil and gas production amounted to 4.345 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in August, with 3.340 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of oil extracted, an increase of 3.4% compared to July, but a drop of 3.5% compared to the same month in 2023.

Natural gas production reached 159.7 million cubic meters per day (m³/d), increasing 5.6% compared to July 2024 and 8% compared to August 2023. The use of natural gas was 97.8%, with 54.33 million m³/d made available to the market. Flaring reached 3.61 million m³/d, representing a 6.8% increase compared to July, but a 4.3% decrease compared to last August.

Regarding Brazil’s pre-salt, the combined oil and gas production amounted to 3.463 million boe/d, making up 79.7% of the country’s production, which is a 5.5% increase compared to both the previous month and the same period last year. The ANP’s data shows that 2.694 million bbl/d of oil and 122.25 million m³/d of natural gas were produced through 148 wells.

The Tupi field, situated in the pre-salt area of the Santos Basin, was the largest producer, with 832,600  thousand bbl/d of oil and 43.19 million m³/d of natural gas produced in August. The installation with the highest production was the floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) unit Carioca (Mv-30), operating in the Sépia, Sépia Leste, and Sépia Eco fields, accounting for 160,720 bbl/d of oil.

Petrobras recently made a final investment decision (FID) to move forward with the second development phase of the Sépia and Atapu fields, which will see Seatrium build two FPSO units.

In the natural gas arena, the highest-producing unit was the FPSO Guanabara, in the shared Mero field, with 10.19 million m³/d of gas. The FPSO, which can produce up to 180,000 bpd, reached its production peak of 179,000 barrels of oil per day in February 2023, some eight months after the first oil.

The Mero field is home to two other FPSOs. One of them is the FPSO Pioneiro de Libra, with the capacity to produce up to 50,000 bpd, and the other is FPSO Sepetiba, which reached Brazilian waters in September 2023, with the start of production following suit four months later. An additional two – for a total of five – are yet to be installed. 

Offshore fields contributed to 97.6% of the oil and 83.8% of the natural gas produced. The fields operated by Petrobras, alone or in partnership with other companies, were responsible for a whopping 89.21% of the total amount produced. Production came from 6,432 wells, 493 offshore and 5,939 onshore.