With only three years of operation, Búzios already accounts for about 25% of Petrobras’ total production

Petrobras received last Sunday night, August 15, in Houston (USA), the Distinguished Achievement Award for Companies, the main award of the global oil and gas industry. Granted annually by the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), the award recognized the set of innovations developed to enable production at Búzios, the largest deep-water oil field in the world, in the Santos Basin pre-salt.

“This achievement confirms our technological journey, built over more than 60 years of existence. It is a journey of human perseverance, technical persistence, innovation, and creativity, always supported by the strictest operational safety practices. I thank everyone who worked so hard for the success of the Búzios project, and I dedicate this award to the company’s technical staff of excellence,” said Petrobras’ CEO, Joaquim Silva e Luna.

To make the Búzios project a reality, Petrobras developed a series of technologies for a scenario that combines challenging conditions, such as ultra-deep waters and reservoirs located below the salt layer, at a depth of more than 7,000 meters, with high levels of pressure and low temperatures. To reach this new exploration and production frontier, Petrobras has developed pioneering solutions: from new pipeline and subsea equipment configurations to technologies for CO2 separation and reinjection. Through these technologies, Búzios became a world-class project that combines safety, enormous high-quality oil reserves, low extraction costs and reduced emissions.

These are unprecedented productivity gains in the global offshore industry. In July of this year, after only three years of operation, the Búzios Field reached 715,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day, equivalent to about 25% of Petrobras’ total production. And the expectation is to reach a daily production of over 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day within the decade, making it Petrobras’ highest-producing asset.

History of award-winning innovations

Petrobras is receiving this international recognition for the fourth time in a trajectory that has accompanied its technological evolution in deep and ultradeep waters. The first time was in 1992, for the innovations developed for the Marlim field, in the Campos Basin; the second, in 2001, for the solutions designed for Roncador; the third, in 2015, for the set of ten technologies especially created for pre-salt production.

In 2019, the Brazilian edition of the Conference (OTC Brasil) also awarded Petrobras the Distinguished Achievement Award, for the set of innovations implemented during the Libra Long Duration Test (EWT), in the pre-salt of the Santos Basin.