Rio de Janeiro – Petrobras’ Finance and Investor Relations director, Almir Barbassa, said today (14th) that up until the end of the year, the state-owned company will be testing technologies to boost production capacity at oil rigs.
One of the technologies mentioned by Barbassa concerns underwater separation of water and oil and then the reinjection of water, enabling increased output and better cost-to-production ratio.
“Currently, many of our rigs are limited by the processed volume, which is a mixture of oil and water. Take, for instance, a rig capable of processing 180,000 barrels of oil per day: if 50% of that volume is water, then the actual capacity drops to 90,000 barrels of oil per day,” he said. “By carrying out the underwater separation and then reinjecting the water, we will only take oil to the rig, thus increasing its capacity,” he explained.
According to Barbassa, the prototype for this technology is ready. “This is a great opportunity. It should even lower rig construction costs, because rig size should decrease,” he said.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
