(Bloomberg) – Equinor ASA says it might quickly begin producing at a big deepwater oil subject off the coast of Brazil after struggling delays at a undertaking that’s essential for its development technique.
The $8 billion Bacalhau undertaking, the biggest new growth in its marketing strategy, was initially scheduled to begin in 2024. Equinor will begin with one properly throughout the commissioning course of — when technicians and engineers check and activate the gear — and extra wells are scheduled to come back on line within the months forward, the corporate stated Friday in a response to emailed questions from Bloomberg Information.
The delays to the preliminary startup on the Bacalhau oil subject, located off the coast of São Paulo, underscore the technological challenges oil producers face when growing tasks greater than 1,000 ft underwater. It’s additionally a velocity bump for Equinor’s development technique.
Bacalhau is anticipated to supply as a lot as 220,000 bpd. It was one of many first property Brazil’s state oil firm, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, offered when it started divesting a few of its oil fields a decade in the past, underscoring how Bacalhau is much more complicated than different tasks in Brazil’s so-called pre-salt area.
“Extremely-deep reservoirs, excessive strain, and full gasoline reinjection have stretched prices and undertaking timelines,” stated Andre Fagundes, a vp at power consultancy Welligence who covers Brazil. “As first oil approaches, Bacalhau stays a defining check of Equinor’s means to ship complicated pre-salt tasks at scale.”
Equinor started a program to drill a complete of 19 wells at Bacalhau in 2022. Chief Monetary Officer Torgrim Reitan stated in an earnings name on July 23 that the undertaking was “going in line with plan” and that Equinor would have “a handful of wells producing by year-end.”
The elevated ranges of reservoir strain on the subject make it technically complicated. Equinor stated it requires high-pressure compressors to have the ability to reinject the gasoline, and that it’s going to flare from the primary properly till it has examined gear wanted to inject the gasoline again into the reservoir.
Bacalhau is the primary undertaking within the pre-salt area that’s been developed by a overseas oil firm. The floating manufacturing and storage vessel, generally known as an FPSO, arrived at Bacalhau in late February.
It has taken Equinor longer to achieve first oil on the FPSO in contrast with related vessels operated by state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA. Petrobras, because the Rio de Janeiro-based producer is thought, reached first oil on the Alexandre de Gusmão FPSO in Could, solely three months after it had arrived on the subject.
