Brazil's Petrobras sets record oil output at Buzios Field

Rio de Janeiro — Brazilian state-led oil company Petrobras set a fresh daily output record at the Buzios Field this week, marking the latest production advancement at the country's second-biggest gusher, the company said in a 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 $35/b, according to Petrobras. Lifting costs for the entire subsalt region were $5.60/b in 2019, down from $6.50/b in 2018, according to the company's 2019 earnings statement.