The agreement was signed yesterday at Petrobras head office in Rio de Janeiro and highlights the longterm commitment Halliburton has towards Brazilian O&G development.
Petrobras and Halliburton signed a technological cooperation agreement for subsalt reservoir research and development. Three research projects were negotiated:
-Technologies to determine contamination in bottom hole fluid samples.
-Well production behavior simulations in the laboratory.
-Salt and CO² formation cementation.
Additionally, twelve other projects are still under negotiation. The agreement will be in effect for three years, and can be renewed for an equal term. Petrobras foresees it will invest some $15 million in the projects.
The project portfolio includes the deployment, in 2011, of the Halliburton Brazil Technologies and Solutions Center in Rio de Janeiro, to be located on the Fundão Island.
This area in Fundão Island, adjacent to the UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) campus, is turning into a major O&G technology development hub. SLB announced a partnership with Petrobras to build a research center there a few months ago and Petrobras has its own research center in the premises, along with O&G research centers belonging to UFRJ.
This center will be part of the company’s technological excellence network and is the first to be installed in the Southern Hemisphere.
According to Cidar Mansilla, the executive director of Halliburton, the technological center is expected to generate a few hundred job openings for Brazilian technicians, particularly in the research and development area.
To Petrobras’ E&P director, Guilherme Estrella, the partnership between Petrobras and Halliburton will help the company overcome the challenges it will be up against in the next few years, not only in the subsalt, but in several other projects as well.
He also mentioned that Halliburton has been contributing to Petrobras’ progress in E&P since the 1960’s, initially in the Recôncavo Basin, in Bahia.
Halliburton has been developing solutions for deep and ultra deepwater wells in Brazil since before the first subsalt fields were discovered and has participated in well over 90% of well completions in Brazil.
Success in the complex deepwater environments encountered in the Brazilian subsalt fields are increasingly dependant on a perspective that seeks advantage at every step in the E&P process and that is where Halliburton excells.
There is no doubt that companies such as Halliburton and SLB have understood the huge dimensions and exploratory potential of the Brazilian offshore seabed and are investing big now, secure in the knowledge that their future returns will be much bigger still.
Less than 10% of the Brazilian offshore potencial has been explored and there is no doubt among experts that many new high profile discoveries will be unveiled in the next few years.
Claudio Paschoa
Photo courtesy of Halliburton