Petrobras to operate 23 pre-salt fields by 2020

Brazil's federal energy company Petrobras expects to have 23 pre-salt fields operational by 2020, a company source told.
Production will start this year in the Santos basin with the Tupi long-duration test. Petrobras has postponed the test by two months to May from March, although the delay does not threaten the project.

"The two-month delay means nothing. We are now waiting for the FPSO to arrive in Brazil from Singapore," Petrobras E&P director Guilherme Estrella told in Rio de Janeiro at company headquarters.
The test will serve as a base for the Tupi pilot project scheduled for 2010. The company also plans to conduct two additional pre-salt pilot projects in 2013 (Guara I) and 2014 (Iara I).

Petrobras and its partners will produce 368,000 bpd from pre-salt fields by 2014, according to the source. Petrobras aims to launch 20 more pre-salt prospects from 2015 to 2020. The areas have yet to be named and are numbered from 4 to 23, the source added.
The goal is to increase pre-saltproduction in Brazil to 582,000 bpd in 2015, 959,000 bpd in 2016, 1.32 mm bpd in 2017, 1.53 mm bpd in 2018, 1.77 mm bpd in 2019 and 1.82 mm bpd in 2020.

Investments in the pre-salt will total $ 111 bn from 2009 to 2020, with $ 98.8 bn going to Santos and $ 12.6 bn to the Espirito Santo basin. To achieve the pre-salt output target, Petrobras will install 23 platforms and two hubs in the Santos basin by 2020. Two extra units will be established in Espirito Santo, the Petrobras source said.
The pre-salt Jupiter discovery in Santos' BM-S-24 block, which is mainly natural gas, is due to come online in 2017 to 2018, increasing Petrobras's natural gas output to 80 mm cmpd (2.8 bn cfpd) in 2020 from 50 mm cmpd (1.76 bn cfpd) in 2009.