Brazil’s state-owned oil giant Petrobras has reached a new monthly record in pre-salt oil and natural gas output due to a start-up on Lula Central, in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil.

Petrobras said on Thursday that its total production of oil and natural gas in July was of 2.89 million barrels of equivalent oil per day (boed), with the same level of the previous month, which was of 2.90 million boed.

Of this total, 2.70 million boed were produced in Brazil and 0.19 million boed were produced abroad.

The average oil production in July was of 2.29 million barrels per day (bpd), in line with the previous month, which was of 2.30 million bpd. Of this total, 2.20 million bpd were produced in Brazil and 0.09 million bpd were produced abroad.

Pre-salt production up 6 pct

The production of oil and natural gas operated by Petrobras in the pre-salt layer in July had an increase of 6% over the previous month and achieved a new monthly record, with the volume of 1.32 million boed.

This result is mainly due to the start-up, on July 8, of the Lula Central production system’s operation through the Cidade de Saquarema FPSO, and due to the growth of the production of new wells connected to the Cidade Maricá and Cidade de Itaguaí FPSOs, also installed in the Lula field.

The oil production operated by Petrobras (own and partners’ division) in the pre-salt layer in July was also a monthly record, reaching an average of 1.06 million bpd, surpassing the monthly hallmark of 1 million bpd for the first time. In addition, the daily record was reached on July 20 with the production of 1.11 million barrels.

New record for natural gas production in the country

Natural gas production in the country, excluding the liquefied volume, was of 79.4 million m³/day, up 0.7% from the previous month (78.8 million m³/day), reaching a new monthly record.

The average natural gas production abroad was of 16 million m³/day, down 7% from the 17.2 million m³/day achieved in the previous month.