Petrobras receives international award for technologies for the Búzios field

Last Sunday night, August 15, in Houston (USA), Petrobras received the Distinguished Achievement Award for Companies, the main award in the world oil and gas industry. Awarded annually by the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), the award recognized the set of innovations developed to enable the production of Búzios, the largest deepwater oil field in the world, in the pre-salt of the Santos Basin.

“This achievement celebrates our technological journey built over more than 60 years of existence. It is a journey of human improvement, technical persistence, innovation and creativity, always supported by the most rigorous operational safety practices. I would like to thank everyone who did their best for the success of the Búzios project and I dedicate this award to the company’s technical staff of excellence”, said Petrobras president Joaquim Silva e Luna.

To make the Búzios project a reality, Petrobras has developed a series of technologies for a scenario that combines challenging conditions, such as ultra-deep waters and reservoirs located below the salt layer, more than 7,000 meters deep, with high pressure levels and low temperatures. To reach this new frontier of exploration and production, Petrobras has developed pioneering solutions: from new configurations of pipelines and subsea equipment to technologies for separation and reinjection of CO2. Through these technologies, Búzios has become a world-class project that combines safety, huge reserves of high quality oil, low extraction costs and reduced emissions.

These are unprecedented productivity gains in the offshore industry worldwide. In July this year, with just three years of operation, the Búzios Field reached 715,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day, equivalent to around 25% of Petrobras’ total production. And the expectation is to reach the end of the decade with daily production above 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, becoming Petrobras’ asset with the highest production.

History of awarded innovations

Petrobras receives this international recognition for the fourth time, in a trajectory that accompanied its technological evolution in deep and ultra-deep waters. The first time was in 1992, due to the innovations developed for the Marlim field, in the Campos Basin; the second, in 2001, for the solutions designed for Roncador; for the third time, in 2015, by the set of ten technologies specially created for pre-salt production. 

In 2019, the Brazilian edition of the Conference (OTC Brasil) also awarded Petrobras the Distinguished Achieviement Award, for the set of innovations implemented during the Libra Long Duration Test (TLD), in the Santos Basin pre-salt.