Wednesday 30 August 2017

Oil production from the first rig to operate in Brazil's offshore Libra area should start in late September or October, an official at state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA said on Tuesday.

Technical problems delayed officials' previous forecast of a July start for the rig.

"We are talking about two or three months of delay in relation to what we intended to do previously," Osmond Coelho, a general manager for the Libra project, said at an industry event in Rio de Janeiro.

The consortium led by Petrobras had a technical problem connecting the well to the rig, as it prepares the extended-duration production test with a view to produce initially 30,000 barrels of oil per day.

Libra is one of the largest oil reserves in Brazil, with recoverable volumes estimated by oil regulator ANP of between 8 billion and 12 billion barrels. Petrobras, as the company is known, is the operator in the consortium that includes Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA and the Chinese companies CNPC e CNOOC.