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Petrobras announces the first major gas production project for the Santos Basin
Petroleumworld
LONDON
Petroleumworld.com 07 28 06
Petrobras announced the approval of the Technical and Economic Viability Study (TEVS) for the biggest natural gas production project in the Santos Basin to date: the development of the Mexilhão gas pole. The TEVS covers the basic project and the offshore gas production and flow system hiring process, which will include a platform. The project, announced during the inauguration of the company's first Exploration and Production Business Unit administrative office in the State of São Paulo, foresees the production of up to 15 million cubic meters of gas and of 20,000 barrels of condensed natural gas a day, a company press release said.The Mexilhão Pole, considered strategic to supply the country with natural gas, is one of the five production complexes slated to be deployed in the Santos Basin. It foresees the installation of a megaplatform to be positioned between the Mexilhão field and a gas treatment unit to be built in the municipality of Caraguatatuba. The project is budgeted at $2 billion. The company is already defining the gas treatment unit construction agreements, which will be announced in due time, says Petrobras.
The Mexilhão field is located in the São Paulo coast, about 160 kilometers offshore and at a depth (distance between sea surface and bed) of 320 to 550 meters.
The fixed Mexilhão 1 (PMXL-1) platform, which will receive the gas and condensate produced at the pole, will be a 230-meter tall superstructure, twice the height of Petrobras' main office building in Rio de Janeiro, a 26-story building. It is expected to go online in the first half of 2009, producing 8 to 9 million cubic meters of gas a day. After two or three years of operation, the platform will reach its maximum capacity, i.e., 15 million cubic meters a day.
Mexilhão 1 will be installed at a site where sea depth is 172 meters, at about 20 kilometers from the field. Its production will flow through a 34-inch wide, 146-kilometer long pipeline that will connect it to the Caraguatatuba Gas Treatment Unit (CGTU).
The treatment unit will be installed in modules. Each module will be capable of processing 7.5 million cubic meters of gas a day. In the future, this unit will also be sized to treat the gas coming from other Santos Basin areas. New modules will be installed according to the needs that arise from the gradual increase in production. After being processed at the CGTU, the gas will be transported to the municipality of Taubaté, located about 100 kilometers from Caraguatatuba, where the Campinas-Rio gas pipeline, which is currently under construction, passes.
Santos Basin: more gas for Brazil
The company said in its release, that in the next 10 years, Petrobras and its partners expect to invest some $18 billion in exploration and production development activities in the Santos Basin. The Company hopes to add 12 million cubic meters a day of gas produced in the Santos Bay to its total production as early as the second half of 2008. By the end of 2010, this volume is likely to surge to about 30 million cubic meters a day, contributing to a significant reduction in the dependence on imported gas. With the BS Business Unit's exploration, Petrobras will create 1,200 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs, strengthening the São Paulo state's industry.
The Santos Basin is located in Southeastern Brazil, under the waters of the southern portion of the State of Rio de Janeiro, cutting through the coast of São Paulo and Paraná, and reaching the northern portion of the Santa Catarina coast. It covers an area of nearly 352,000 square kilometers, 151,000 square kilometers (43%) of which at depths of up to 400 meters, while 201,000 square meters (57%) between 400 and 3,000 meters. Petrobras and its partners hold 40,663 square kilometers of exploratory concessions of this basin's 352,000 square kilometers. About 52% of the area under concession is in the State of São Paulo. The rest is in the states of Rio de Janeiro (35%), Santa Catarina (7%), and Paraná (6%).
Petroleumworld 27 07 06
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