Pre-salt Santos, Campos basins surpass 500,000 bbls of oil/day

Oil production in the pre-salt Santos and Campos Basins have surpassed 500,000 bbl/day (bpd), topping-out at 520,000 bpd on 24 June and setting a new daily output record. Of this amount, 78% (406,000 bpd) belongs to Petrobras, while the rest belongs to partner companies. The 520,000 bpd output was achieved eight years after oil was discovered in the pre-salt layer in 2006. In the US Gulf of Mexico, according to Petrobras, it took 20 years from the first discovery to produce 500,000 bpd and in the North Sea, the level was reached in 10 years.

Petrobras has 25 producing wells in the province, of which 10 are located in the Santos Basin, accounting for 53% of the production from pre-salt (274,000 bpd). The other 15 are located in the Campos Basin and account for 47% of the output (246,000 bpd).

The average pre-salt output accounted for 22% of the operator’s total production in May in Brazil. From 2010 to 2014, the average daily output at the pre-salt reservoirs has soared more than tenfold, from 41,000 bbl to 520,000 bpd.