Petrobras announces wildcat plans, FPSO delay

Brazilian NOC Petrobras revealed upcoming pre-salt drilling plans in a press conference on the company’s Q1 financial results on Tuesday.

In 2018, Petrobras intends to drill one exploration well in the Peroba prospect, which the company was awarded with partners BP and China National Oil & Gas Exploration and Development Corporation in a 2017 pre-salt bid round.

The NOC will also drill two wildcat wells in undisclosed locations in 2019, though the details have not yet been finalised. “There is still plenty of work on geological and geophysical analysis to be done,” E&P director Solange Guedes said in the conference.

Separately, the company also announced delays in the integration work for the P-68 FPSO, which is to be situated at the Berbigão field in the Santos Basin.

“We have been carrying out our usual analysis of performance and probabilities as the P-68 goes through the integration stage at the Jurong shipyard in Espirito Santo, and we see the possibility of start-up slipping into the first part of 2019, rather than 2018 as planned,” Hugo Repsold, Petrobras’ director for production development and technology, was quoted as saying by Upstream Online.

P-68 is one of eight FPSOs planned for different fields in the basin.