Jeff Fick – Dow Jones Newswire/Market Watch, 09/21/2012
BG Group PLC (BG.LN, BRGYY) expects Brazil to represent one-third of its global crude-oil output by 2020, and the oil fields in which it is already participating to produce as much as the entire North Sea at its peak, BG Brasil President Nelson Silva said Thursday in an interview.
BG expects its share of production from four deep-water blocks offshore Brazil to reach 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day by 2020, up from 30,000 barrels currently, Mr. Silva said. The four blocks, located in the cluster of ultra-deepwater discoveries known as the subsalt, are all operated by Brazilian state-run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR, PETR3.BR, PETR4.BR), or Petrobras. BG holds stakes of between 20% and 30% in each block.
“We see our blocks together with Petrobras and other partners producing as much as the peak production, or equivalent amount of oil, as the peak production of the North Sea,” Mr. Silva said, noting the comparison referred to barrels of oil equivalent, or BOE, that include crude oil and natural gas. North Sea oil production is estimated to have peaked at 6.4 million barrels per day in 2000.
