Jeff Fick – NASDAQ/Dow Jones Newswires, 09/11/2012
Brazilian state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR, PETR4.BR), or Petrobras, said Tuesday that it had started oil production at the Baleia Azul presalt field in the offshore Campos Basin.
The first well at the field started pumping about 20,000 barrels of light crude oil late Monday to the Cidade de Anchieta floating production, storage and offloading vessel, the company said. Jose Formigli, Petrobras’s director of exploration and production, had said last month that first oil at the field would be pumped by the end of August.
The Cidade de Anchieta is one of two new production systems that are planned to start output in 2012, although Petrobras expects daily average crude oil output to remain stable at about two million barrels per day. The company’s crude oil output has been undercut so far in 2012 by heavy maintenance at offshore oil platforms and the unexpected shut down of the Frade field operated by U.S. oil major Chevron Corp. (CVX).
