Petrobras to change operations center to São Paulo
Valor Econômico
35 years after the discovery of the basin of Campos (RJ), currently responsible for nearly 80% of all the oil produced in Brazil, Petrobras publicly announces its new strategic priority is the basin of Santos, centralized in São Paulo, but that goes from the coast of Rio de Janeiro to the coast of Santa Catarina, and it is already studying the use of the premises located in the Basin of Campos as supporting facilities in the production of the new apple of its eye. More complex than the basin of Campos, with greater volume of reserves and more distant from the coast, the unit of Santos will concentrate all the exploratory activity from the south of the basin of Campos up to Santa Catarina.
The area will receive investments of US$ 40 billion until 2013 and US$ 99 billion until 2020. Discovered in 1979 (the Merluza gas field) by Pecten (a Shell subsidiary) in the first and only story of success of the "risk contracts" signed between the Brazilian Military Government and foreign oil companies, the Basin of Santos currently concentrates jewels of the post-salt layer, such as the fields of Mexilhão (gas) and Uruguá-Tambaú (gas and oil), and of the pre-salt, such as the Tupi, Jupiter and Guará ones.
The municipality of Santos and its surroundings will concentrate the main installations of the project of the basin that takes its name. After paying the Municipal Government R$ 15.18 million (US$ 8.83 million) for a piece of land of 25 thousand square meters in the neighborhood of Valongo, Petrobras has designed a complex with three towers, capable of holding up to 7.5 thousand people, more than the current 6.8 thousand of the base of Macaé.
Besides that, the state-owned company decided in November that, if no obstacle is detected in the conceptual project that will be made together with the Air Force, its offshore logistics base of the basin of Santos will be built in an area of the Airbase of Santos, in the municipality of Guarujá. The base will feature a port, an airport, storage facilities for products and a center of environmental protection. Petrobras has also created a "joint venture" with BG, Repsol and Galp to study floating LNG projects that will allow the storage and transfer of the LNG, propane and butane produced in pre-salt to regasification terminals or vessels, currently installed in Ceará and in Rio de Janeiro.
Today, Petrobras exports more with the purpose of exchanging heavy oil, produced in Campos, for light oil, and with that to harmonize the mix of products of its refineries. The net result of the exports is insignificant when compared to what the company projects for 2020. Before that, as of 2015, the company may have surpluses of gasoline and diesel for export from the new refineries of Pernambuco and Maranhão.
Petrobras has more than a dozen partners in the exploration and production in the basin of Santos, among which are Chevron, Repsol, Shell, BG, Galp, Queiróz Galvão, Wintershall, Exxon, Amerada Hess, Maersk, El Paso and Starfish.