Petrobras production down in March

Brazil’s Petróleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) recorded a total of 2.55 MMboe/d of oil and natural gas production in March, of which 2.36 MMboe were produced in Brazil and 183,000 boe/d abroad. 

Image of the P-31 FPSO, from Sofec.

The average oil production in March was 2.02 MMb/d, 3% below the volume produced in February, at 2.09 MMb/d. In this production, 1.94 MMb/d was produced in Brazil and 86,000 b/d abroad.

The reduction reflected in March was due mainly to the continuation of shutdowns in large production units, corrective maintenance on P-31 floating production and storage offloading (FPSO) unit, which resumed production on 28 March, and the occurrence of fire aboard the P-48 platform, whose operation was resumed on 16 April.

In Q1, the company’s Brazilian oil production came in at 1.98 MMb/d, due to the concentration of a significant volume of scheduled production stoppages in this period, which represented approximately 5% of production. This year is expected volume stoppages of 2.5% of the average production of the year.

Pre-salt oil production

In March, the company’s oil and gas production in the pre-salt layer operated by Petrobras grew 1.2% over the previous month to 1.104 MMboe/d, a new monthly record, exceeding February’s record of 1.091 MMb/d.

The company’s oil output operated by Petrobras also grew 1.2% when compared to the previous month to an average of 884,000 b/d. This volume also represents a new monthly record when compared to the previous month, at 874,000 b/d.

Natural gas production

The company’s natural gas production in Brazil, excluding liquefied volume, was 67.8 MMcm/d, 10% lower than in February at 75.4 MMcm/d.

The average production abroad was 16.4 MMcm/d, 2.4% higher than the 16 MMcm/d reached in the previous month.

Annual production target

With the startup of FPSOs Cidade de Saquarema (Lula Central) and Cidade de Caraguatatuba (Lapa), and the smaller number of shutdowns scheduled for 2H 2016, the annual target of oil production in Brazil, from 2.145 MMb/d, is maintained.

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