Campos Basin - 25 Years of Production and its Contribution to the Oil Industry
Authors: da Costa Fraga C.T. , Borges F.A. , Bellot C. , Beltrão R. , Assayag M.I. 
Published: October 2008

Campos Basin, the main production province in Brazil, was discovered in 1974. It is located on the North coast of the Rio de Janeiro State and comprises an area of around 115,000 km2 (28,400 acres), as shown in Figure 1. The producing oil fields are between 70 and 150 km (43 to 93 miles) far from the seashore.

It started its production on August 13th, 1977 with 10,000 bopd (barrels of oil per day) from the well 1-EN-01-RJS, which produced to a semi-submersible platform; this well has produced nearly 35 million barrels of oil until February 1998, when it was shutdown for economical reasons. Today, after more than twenty-five years of continuous operation, the overall production system comprises 13 fixed platforms and 24 Floating Systems distributed among 42 oil fields, which account for the production of 1.21 million bopd - which corresponds to more than 80% of Petrobras oil production, plus 18.9 million m3 of gas per day - or 43% of the gas production (as of December 2002).

Such an evolution was supported by investments in exploration and production development, in deepwater technology developments and in continuous management improvement.

This paper describes the main driving forces to exploit Campos Basin - especially its deep and ultra-deepwaters fields, the technological and production developments performed, the experience accumulated by Petrobras along these 25 years of operations as well as its contribution to the global oil industry.

Introduction

The 1973 world oil crisis brought a tremendous economical impact on most countries, especially on those with strong dependence on imported oil, such as Brazil. This led a worldwide increase in investments on oil and gas exploration and production, including the search of new technology for producing fields located in hostile environment.

The first oil discovery in Campos Basin occurred in 1974, while Brazil was facing the economical commotion created by the crisis, worsened by the country's unbalanced external payments account. Bringing the newly discovered prolific oil province on to production, as fast and at the lowest cost as possible, became a key issue for Petrobras. The increased throughput would help reducing the burden of Brazil to manage its increasing external debts. The oil imports were responsible, at that time, for a significant portion of the Brazilian payment unbalance.

The country had to simultaneously reduce its oil consumption and increase its production. The reduction would come with the introduction of alcohol-fueled vehicles, and the use of other alternative energy sources, while the increase would mainly come through the Campos Basin offshore development.

The problem was to produce in conditions never experienced before. The Garoupa and Enchova Fields, the first ones in the basin, located in 120 m water depth (WD), were already considered in deep waters, at the time. The available field-proven solutions using fixed platforms were technically and economically feasible, but it would take years for its implementation, and the costs were relatively high. The country also had to limit the use of foreign services and goods to a bearable minimum, to not worsen the economical scenario.