abce certificate
New Articles
Tuesday, 02 December, 2008, 14:30 GMT | more >>

Petrobras sharpens drill bit in Santos play



By Gareth Chetwynd 

Petrobras is poised to spud another high-potential well on an emerging gas play in Brazil’s Santos basin.

The next Petrobras well will be spudded on BM-S-3, close to the under-development Mexilhao field, on a block where Petrobras is the sole owner of buying out former partners Amerada Hess and Kerr-McGee.

Once the semi-submersible drilling rig Alaskan Star starts work on the BM-S-3 well, the number of Petrobras exploration wells currently on the go in Brazil will click up to 10, according to exploration manager Paulo Menconca.

The well is of major strategic importance because the development of the Mexilhao field has been conceived with a platform capacity of 15 million cubic metres of gas per day even though the currently known reserves on the field would only account for half of that.

Petrobras is also drilling its third wildcat on the pre-salt play in the Santos basin since it spudded a well on the Carioca prospect in April. The wildcat is in Block BM-S-9, where the Brazilian company is partnered by UK player BG Group (30%) and Spain’s Repsol YPF (25%).

Petrobras is also getting ready to drill the Tupi South appraisal well on BM-S-11. Strong flows of light oil and gas from pre-salt depths of nearly 6000 metres from last year’s Tupi find led 25% block partner BG Group to state that the area may hold billions of barrels of reserves if its potential is realised.

The Tupi South prospect is understood to be at a total depth of 5200 metres, but another wildcat planned this year on a possibly contigous prospect called Iracema is said to be planned for more than 6200 metres.

“It is very premature to talk about the pre-salt because it is very new and needs a great deal of appraisal and technical development,” Mendonca said.

He added that his exploration team was “very upbeat” about the potential of the new play, but stressed that any predictions were still “premature”.

Mendonca declared that the pre-salt model drawn from seismic interpretation was being increasingly confirmed, and pointed out that the same system had been located much further north on the Cacharel field beneath the heavy oilfields of the Whale Park in the northern Campos basin.

“We are now imaging the sub-salt section with a degree of clarity,” he said.

In yet another new play in the Santos basin, Petrobras is also making plans to spud a first well on Block BM-S-7, where Repsol YPF is the partner.

This block lies near the Merluza field in an area where the geological system is thought to be affected by a meteorite impact offering potential for greater fracturing and improved flow avenues among the massive columns of rock found in the Santos basin.

“We do not have a rig to drill (on BM-S-7) yet, but we hope to get one there as soon as possible, “ Mendonca said.


Monday, 30 April, 2007, 12:32 GMT  | last updated: Monday, 30 April, 2007, 13:59 GMT

e-mail this article to a colleague


to email:  from:
comments: