Brazil Established New Record for Oil Exports in 2020

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil established a new record for oil exports in 2020, with sales averaging 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) and a peak of 1.9 million bpd during the month of May, according to the Mines and Energy minister Bento Albuquerque. The minister also announced that on January 7th, Brazil’s oil giant Petrobras reached a daily production record of 2.84 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), beating the previous mark set in 2015, with 2.79 million BOE/day.

Petrobras in 2020 produced 2.28 million barrels/day, compared to 2.23 million barrels/day recorded in 2015. Pre-salt accounted for 66% of the volume extracted by the company in 2020. In 2015, the percentage was 24%.

The volume extracted last year exceeded by 5% the targets originally forecast for the year, in line with the revised October forecast. Petrobras attributed the higher-than-expected result to four factors:

(1) production above the nominal processing capacity in the Búzios field as a result of the greater temporary availability of power generation and gas compression on the platforms in that field;

(2) the lower number of interventions to combat CO2 corrosion in underwater gas-injection pipelines, due to the development of new inspection tools and technologies;

(3) the slower production decline observed in the Tupi (ex-Lula) and Sapinhoá fields, due to the better performance of the reservoirs; and

](4) greater production efficiency and optimization of production stops on platforms, despite the operational restrictions resulting from the Covid19 pandemic.