Brazil quadruples declarations of commerciality in 2018

Brazil's state-run oil firm Petrobras submitted declarations of commerciality on Thursday to sector regulator ANP for three new fields located near the Sapinhoá field, in the Santos basin pre-salt area.

The new areas, named Sudoeste de Sapinhoá, Noroeste de Sapinhoá, and Nordeste de Sapinhoá, will go through a unitization process with the Sapinhoá field. This is the second time Petrobras has declared the commerciality of areas this year.

In May, the firm submitted a declaration of commerciality for a field called Cancã Leste, offshore Espírito Santo basin. In total, Brazil has already registered eight new fields in 2018, of which four were declared commercial by Petrobras and another four by Karoon in shallow waters in the Santos basin.

The number of new fields is already four times that declared in the same period of last year. By the end of July 2017, only two areas had been declared commercial, both operated by Alvopetro in the onshore Recôncavo basin. During full-year 2017, six new fields were established in Brazil, of which only one was located offshore, the Mero area.

More evidence of oil and gas has also been found during well drilling this year. So far, companies have reported 11 oil and gas finds during drilling, of which five were offshore, while in 2017 only nine such reports were made by July 20, with only two located offshore.

The increase in the number of oil and gas finds is a result not only of Petrobras' activities but also those of other firms. Companies such as Rosneft, Equinor, Imetame, and Tek have also encountered oil and gas in Brazil this year.

Although the increase in the number of hydrocarbons finds in the country could indicate an upswing in exploration activities, it is still a stretch to say there is a recovery underway. Seven of the nine occurrences of hydrocarbons were found in fields that are already in the development and production phases, while only four were located in exploration blocks, of which three are onshore.