Agência Brasil*
Rio de Janeiro – Brazil will come to 2015 with a surplus in the natural gas supply of about 152 million cubic metres per day, 24 million cubic metres above the consumption forecasted for that year. The announcement was made by the president of the Energetic Research Company (EPE), Maurício Tolmasquim, who in a lecture at Rio Oil & Gas presented the estimates indicating that the demand in the country will go from 60 million cubic metres per day, in 2006, to 128 million cubic metres in 2015.
The greatest share of this demand, according Tolmasquim, will be by the concessionary companies for natural gas distribution, with consumption of 60 million cubic metres per day, while the thermoelectric plants will account for a daily consumption of 47 million cubic metres. The industrial consumption by the Brazilian oil company Petrobras, he added, will reach 21 million cubic metres per day.
Up to 2008, he evaluated, the country should face difficulties in supplying the internal market, but on the following year "the situation will be calmer and in 2011 the production should already be a little above internal demand."
*Translated by Silvia Lindsey
