By Mary Carroll, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Solange Guedes, executive manager of Petrobras Exploration and Production, announced on Monday that they will invest US$5.6 billion in the Programa de Aumento da Eficiência Operacional da Bacia de Campos (Program for Increasing Operational Efficiency in the Campos Basin, PROEF) by 2016.
PROEF has set fifteen actions for improvement and the modernization of equipment, focusing on wells and subsea systems. Over the years, saftey issues at the platforms have been the subject of complaints by the oil unions, as in the case of P-33 in 2010.
Petrobas has decided to invest in thirty-one older production systems which have been operating for more than thirty years in the Campos Basin.
The decision comes despite, or because of, the fact that many platforms have been shut down by the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) and the Ministry of Labor for safety reasons.
The goal is to create more efficient systems, which currently operates at 71 percent and the aim is to increase the number to ninety percent by 2016.
Thirty-one of the platforms produce 450,000 barrels of oil per day, accounting for 25 percent of the total production in the country which can reach up to two million barrels a day.
It is expected that the improvements will increase production to 2.5 million barrels of oil by 2016 and Petrobas estimates there will be a net profit of up to US$3.3 billion.
Guedes explains that “Oil production has a natural decline. We [are] operating a mature basin and it is complex, with production declining. The program aims to increase efficiency in order to address this issue.”
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