Brazil to extend exploration deadlines

Oil and gas regulator ANP will grant operators in Brazil nine additional months to conclude the exploration activities defined in their contracts.

ANP director Cesário Cecchi said during a webinar that the decision was taken due to the low oil prices and that the regulator will consider another extension, depending “on the post-crisis resumption.” Oil institute IBP had asked to extend the exploration deadlines for two years.

According to ANP data, exploration should have been completed at 24 blocks this year.

Director José Guttman said “this crisis will have a global impact in terms of new discoveries that will probably be felt in about five years from now, as resumption takes longer periods in this market.”

Still, state-run Petrobras will continue exploration.

“We will need to manage cash and adequate investments, but pre-salt exploration is feasible even under a scenario of lower prices,” the company’s E&P director, Carlos Alberto Pereira, said at a press conference on Friday.

PRODUCTION CUTS

ANP received requests related to the mothballing of 16 offshore fields, all operated by Petrobras in the states of Sergipe, Alagoas, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, and Ceará. The company also requested to deactivate 12 onshore fields in Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe, and Bahia states, and local company Energizzi wants to deactivate one field.

These areas represent production of 65,000b/d, according to ANP director Marcelo Castilho. Petrobras, however, plans to cut output by 200,000b/d.