MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian state-led oil company Petrobras set a fresh daily output record at the Buzios Field last week, marking the latest production advancement at the country's second-biggest gusher, reported S&P Global with reference the company's statement late Wednesday.
Buzios, which pumped first oil in April 2018, produced 640,000 b/d of crude and a total of 790,000 b/d of oil equivalent on Tuesday, Petrobras said. The field pumped 487,264 b/d and 18.2 million cu m/d for total hydrocarbons output of 601,704 boe/d in January, according to the latest production report from Brazil's National Petroleum Agency, or ANP.
"The Buzios Field, discovered in 2010, is the biggest deep-water oil field in the world," Petrobras said. "It's a world-class asset, with substantial reserves, low risk and low extraction costs."
The field features Brazil's top-six production wells, including three that produce more than 50,000 boe/d, according to the ANP.
The record-setting performance, however, will likely be undermined in coming weeks, with Petrobras starting a massive maintenance program that will shutter each floating production, storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, installed in the subsalt region expected to be shuttered for 15-20 days. The unprecedented program will improve efficiency and check the integrity of subsea systems in the region, which are subject to intense pressures and the corrosive effects of contaminants such as carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid.
Despite the field's relatively recent startup, Buzios will be included in the program, company officials said in February.
Production at Buzios has surged since mid-2019, when Petrobras finally resolved technical issues related to natural gas processing plants onboard the FPSOs installed at the field. The field features high pressures and volumes of associated gas, but is largely free of the high levels of contaminants seen at other subsalt reservoirs.
Petrobras installed four FPSOs capable of pumping up to 150,000 b/d and processing 6 million cu m/d each at Buzios, starting in early 2018. The FPSOs P-74, P-75, P-76 and P-77 handle output at the field. Petrobras plans to install fifth and sixth FPSOs, which will be slightly larger with installed production capacity of about 180,000 b/d, in 2022 and 2024, respectively.
The recent turmoil in global markets related to the oil-price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia as well as the coronavirus outbreak is unlikely to upset Petrobras' development plans at Buzios. Buzios and Lula, Brazil's top producing oil field, have breakeven costs at less than USD35/b, according to Petrobras. Lifting costs for the entire subsalt region were USD5.60/b in 2019, down from USD6.50/b in 2018, according to the company's 2019 earnings statement.
As MRC wrote previously, the chief executive of Brazilian state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro said in December 2019 he wants to sell the company's stake in petrochemical company Braskem within 12 months.
Besides, Braskem is no longer pursuing a petrochemical project, which would have included an ethane cracker, in West Virginia. And the company is seeking to sell the land that would have housed the cracker. The project, announced in 2013, had been on Braskem's back burner for several years.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras' activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
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