Brazil's Petrobras recorded a 4.4% increase in its crude oil production over the first quarter of the year, with the average daily rate at 2.24 million barrels.
The company attributed the increased output to ramp-ups at five platforms and the start of commercial extraction from 19 new wells in the Santos and Campos basins, Reuters reported. These brought the average daily oil equivalent production rate to 2.78 million barrels.
A little over two-thirds of the total came from the pre-salt zone and it was the only production that rose, by 9.1%, which offset declines elsewhere, the report also said. Despite the production growth, however, exports declined by 4.4% in the three-month period on an annual basis. On a quarterly basis, on the other hand, exports rose by 2.5%.
"The conflict in the Middle East caused instability in maritime freight transport and, consequently, a change in the flows of our oil exports," Petrobras said.
Petrobras said earlier this year it planned more than $100 billion in investments this decade to boost offshore oil production as it looks to be one of the last oil producers standing when oil demand starts to drop.
"We need to keep the core [business] very safe . . . We are not doing [a] crazy transition," the company's chief executive told the FT in February, commenting on the company's strategic plan through 2028.
Petrobras needs new oil exploration and production frontiers open as it wants "to be able to be there at the very end of the fade-out of oil," said Prates, who became CEO at the Brazilian state energy firm a year ago under leftwing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Also in February, however, Prates told media that the company had big plans for wind and solar, too, eyeing half of Petrobras' revenue to come from these energy technologies within a decade.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com More