Guest Editorial: The South American Deepwater Sector
Authors: Jones Cleveland M. 
Published: September 2020

2020 set the stage for a profound transformation in the oil and gas industry.

The oil and gas industry was already facing a challenging transition process as economies move toward a low-carbon future; however, surviving and prospering in a low-oil-price and high-risk environment is an even greater and more urgent challenge. Producers with relatively high-cost production will bear the brunt of production curtailments, since none are able to sustain uneconomic production for very long.

In the years leading to 2019, shale plays stole the show, increasing production as long as prices sustained the frantic pace of drilling required for the production increases observed in the US. On the other hand, the intrinsic characteristics of deepwater plays - highly front-loaded investments and long project cycles - worked against them. Relatively low prices that were just as challenging for shale plays were considered a reason to delay deepwater projects (Rigzone 2016).

Portfolio diversification is an important risk-mitigation strategy, whether by region, country, environment, or play type. However, for the majors of the industry, it is increasingly difficult and risky to rely on many relatively small projects to keep their portfolio pipeline full. Given the size of large companies, large projects are required to guarantee high levels of production over long periods and to keep their project portfolio manageable.

Larger plays, and those that are less subject to environmental restrictions, tend to be found in large offshore basins, where deepwater plays dominate. At the same time, the world offers fewer opportunities with acceptable country risk. Thus, larger plays in safer regions have become essential elements of the core business of large oil and gas players.

Besides offering the potential for large production, deepwater plays often can provide low Opex because of their scale and productivities, such as in the Brazilian pre-salt trend (the “pre-salt”), where many wells have consistently delivered sustained average production above 40 thousand BOPD (ANP 2020).

Furthermore, deepwater plays involve large, complex projects that are well suited to the megaproject management capabilities of large players of the industry. Those projects are also amenable to technological innovations that have delivered impressive performance improvements and cost reductions. As an example, Petrobras claims that in 2020 its lifting costs for deepwater pre-salt fields have come down to below $3.00/bbl, and under $5.00/bbl including rig-leasing costs (Petrobras 2020a).

As to innovation-related gains, two Petrobras programs represent unprecedented achievements in deep waters. Prod1000 expects to reach first oil within 1,000 days of a discovery, and Exp100 seeks to achieve a 100% discovery rate in exploratory wells, a feat that breaks the paradigm that has assigned high exploratory risks to deepwater exploration everywhere in the world (Petrobras 2020b).

Existing infrastructure in deepwater plays has also become key in locating exploration and production (E&P) activities, since it can lower Capex and aid the viability of projects that would otherwise be uneconomical.