Brazil’s oil production up 3.5% in February

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil produced an average of 2.917 million barrels of oil per day (MMboe/d) in February, up 3.5% from the same month in 2021, the government said Wednesday.

Although the year-on-year result was positive, the balance closed in negative territory with a 3.8% decline compared to January, according to data from the National Petroleum Agency (ANP, regulator).

According to the agency, hydrocarbon production declined due to the shutdown of four oil platforms that had to remain inactive for maintenance.

For natural gas, production in February was 133 million cubic meters per day, up 1.7% from the same month last year but down 3.1% from January.

Once again, the protagonists were the coveted pre-salt fields, which were responsible for 75.7% of the oil and natural gas produced in the country in February.

The gigantic pre-salt reserves, located in Brazil’s deepwater production horizon in the Atlantic Ocean under a two-kilometer-thick layer of salt, could make the South American giant one of the world’s largest exporters.

Regulatory data show that production from these wells fell 2.4% from January, but was 9.4% higher than in February 2021.

The Tupi field, which produces hydrocarbons from the pre-salt layer in the Santos Basin, remained the most important in Brazil, producing 901 million barrels of oil per day and 42.8 million cubic meters of natural gas.

According to the ANP, in February, 97.1% of the oil produced by Brazil and 87.5% of the gas produced came from reserves in offshore areas.

In terms of operators, state-owned oil company Petrobras (NYSE:PBR), individually or as part of consortia, maintained its leadership role. It accounted for 94.1% of the oil and gas produced in Brazil in January, and the company’s best-performing platform was P77 .

It was followed by the Anglo-Dutch Shell (LON:RDSb) with a production of 453,889 barrels per day, the Portuguese Petrogal (136,643), the Chinese-Spanish Repsol-Sinopec (81,535) and the French Total (81,373) as members of different consortia.

ANP statistics summarize the oil and gas production results y 41 different companies in 278 concession areas, six areas where operators share production with the state, and five areas awarded to Petrobras under special conditions.

With information from EFE