Action Continues at the Santos Basin Deepwater Pre-Salt

Even as Petrobras allegedly slows its exploration efforts, new discoveries are still being uncorked in the Santos Basin. While the national player announced the start up of the EWT in the Guará area in late December, yesterday a new deepwater pre-salt light oil accumulation is discovered in an adjacent area at the same BM-S-9 exploratory block.

The Guara  EWT is producing through well SPS-55, and  is expected to last for five months with a daily production is estimated at 14,000 barrels of oil per day. The Guará area is located in block BM-S-9 and around 300 kilometers off the coast of São Paulo state. The recoverable O&G volumes in Guará are estimated at between 1.1 and 2 billion boe with a around 30º API. Following this EWT, a pilot project is planned for the area, with the wells being connected to the FPSO Cidade de São Paulo. The production is expect to start by 2013 and is estimated at 120,000 barrels of oil and five million cubic meters of gas per day.

Today Petrobras announced a new discovery of good quality oil in another of the pre-salt reservoirs present in block BM-S-9, in ultra deep waters of Santos Basin. The discovery was a result of the drilling of well 3-BRSA-861-SPS (3-SPS-74), informally known as Carioca Nordeste (Northeast), located in a water depth of 2,151m and 275km off the coast of the state of São Paulo in the evaluation area of Carioca well 1-BRSA-491-SPS (1-SPS-50). Preliminary analyses confirm the extent of the accumulation with oil of 26º API in a net pay of 250 meters, actually superior to the result of the wildcat well.

The BM-S-9 block has two evaluation areas: well 1-BRSA-594-SPS (1-SPS-55), informally known as Guará and the area of well 1-BRSA-491-SPS (1-SPS-50), informally known as Carioca, where the new discovery well is located. Petrobras holds a 45% stake in this concession, and is the operator of the consortium comprised of BG Group with 30% and Repsol with 25%.

The Guará EWT will allow Petrobras and its partners to develop a deeper knowledge of the area and the behavior of the reservoirs, in turn aiding the creation of a definitive project for the region and contributing to the development of the Santos Basin pre-salt layer. With the Tupi  area already beginning to produce commercially and the huge Libra area undergoing  further drilling, new pre-salt discoveries can definitely be expected for 2011, and the rumor is that there are major new deepwater reservoirs still to be uncovered, which in turn certainly signifies more business for subsea equipment manufacturers and service providers looking for business in Brazil.

Claudio Paschoa