ANBA – Brazil-Arab News Agency
Petrobras had a record-breaking volume of daily oil production in 2015. According to results presented this Friday (15th) by the company, production in increased in Brazil but was down abroad. Its consolidated operations registered a record production of barrel oil equivalent of oil and gas.
According to the company, 2.128 million barrels of oil were produced in Brazil per day, an increase of 4.6% over the 2014 results and 0.15% above the company’s forecast that was part of its Business and Management Plan. It was the first time that production exceeded the goal set by the business plan in 13 years. The average production of the pre-salt layer was 767,000 barrels per day, or 56% more than the 2014 results.
With the production of oil and natural gas combined, 2.6 million barrels of oil equivalent were produced per day in 2015. The volume exceeds in 5.5% the performance of the previous year.
Exploration in plants outside Brazil, however, declined last year. Production abroad registered 99,000 barrels per day, or 14.4% less than in 2014, according to the company, due to the sale of plants in Colombia and Peru in 2014 and in Argentina in 2015. Natural gas production declined 3.1% to 15.4 million cubic meters per day due to the same reason: sale of assets.
The company said that with the sum of all plants, 2.23 million barrels of oil, per day and on average, were produced, or 3.6% above the results of 2014, and 2.79 million of barrels of oil equivalent of oil and gas per day, an increase of 4.3% in comparison to the previous year.
In a statement, Petrobras’ president, Aldemir Bendine, said that the results show the company’s operational capacity, “even in an adverse global scenario for the oil and gas sector and to reaffirm, before the market, the predictability and transparency of the company’s direction”.
This Friday, the price of the Brent oil barrel dropped to USD 29.10 in London. Petrobras’ stocks closed the day down at the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa). Preferred shares ended the week at BRL 5.18 (USD 1.27), a drop of 8.96% over Thursday’s price. Common shares dropped 7.19% to BRL 6.71 (USD 1.65).
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
