Petrobras has discovered a major new oil province in a deep-water section of Brazil’s Espirito Santo basin, Upstream has learned.
The discovery was made after the Brazilian oil giant drilled six successful wildcats that suggest a light oil resource of up to 900 million barrels with much more drilling to come, according to one of the company’s top exploration managers.
Six out of seven wildcats drilled on a trend analogous to the Petrobras-operated Golfinho development have found light oil and gas in Upper Cretaceous, while Lower Tertiary turbidites have had postive results.
“Six of the seven were successful. In terms of volume, we are already looking at a resource that is two or three times the size of the Golfinho field," said Jonilton Pessoa, Petrobras’ general manager for exploration interpretation for Brazil’s pivotal south-eastern offshore region.
" In the future this could be four or five Golfinhos.”
The Golfinho field - which hosted two 100,000 barrel-per-day floating production, storage and offloading units - had reserves estimated at over 300 million barrels of oil equivalent, consisting of light oil and gas.
The new discoveries already imply the need for as many as six floating production units, probably using “tried-and-tested” field development solutions, another Petrobras source commented. Water depths extend to 2000 metres.
The discoveries are focused around Block BM-ES-23, on an area dubbed 'Park of the Sweets' due to the fact that prospects were named after sugary recipes. Petrobras is partnered by Shell and Inpex on this permit, with stakes of 20% and 15% respectively.
The wider play includes Block BM-ES-32, where Statoil has a 40% stake. Only one well has been drilled there so far, yielding a discovery of light oil dubbed Indra, forming part of a cluster of prospects dubbed 'Park of the Gods'.
A pioneering wildcat will soon be spudded on yet another exploration play on this trend, dubbed the 'Park of the Dogs' and covering parts of BM-ES-22 and BM-ES-32 , Pessoa said, implying that potential resources are greater still.
Petrobras plans to drill between 12 and 20 exploration wells in this region by 2015, with several formation tests also in the pipeline, he said. Ten of this total are commitment wells. The wildcats typically exend to depths of around 4000 metres.
Separately, an appraisal programme is also being formulated for submission to the Brazilian hydrocarbon regulator (ANP).
Golfinho itself has been the target for upside exploration, such as the 'Tambuata' discovery well drilled recently.
Golfinho started producing in December 2006, barely two years after the pioneering discovery well, and received two floating production units supplied by SBM Offshore and Saipem.
A fast-rising water cut subsequently disappointed reservoir managers and led Petrobras to the decision to relocate SBM’s FPSO Capixaba to pre-salt oil on the Cachalote and Baleia Franca fields and connect more wells to Saipem’s FPSO Cidade de Vitoria.
Well productivity and the quality of the oil in this region is very high, however, according to Fernando Taboada, Petrobras manager for the Espirito Santo region.
More to follow...
Published: 27 October 2011 11:57 GMT | Last updated: 45 minutes ago
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