BG Group: Steady Progress in Brazil Offshore Oil Devts

LONDON (Dow Jones Newswires), Jul. 29, 2009

BG Group said Wednesday it is making steady progress in the development of the large Tupi, Iara and Guara oil fields discovered offshore Brazil and new wells on the Corcovado and Abare West prospects will be complete this quarter.

BG Chief Executive Frank Chapman contested recent reports saying it had failed to find hydrocarbons in Corcovado. The Corcovado-1 well was suspended recently because the driller encountered higher pressure than expected, he said. BG has moved on to drill Corcovado-2 and will return to test Corcovado-1 once a casing has been applied to the well. "We wouldn't do this if we weren't confident," he said.

The floating production, storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, for Tupi is 33% complete, orders have been placed for other essential equipment and three drilling rigs have been secured to bring the well into commercial production in 2010, Chapman said.

An extended well test on Tupi, which peaked at 14,800 barrels of oil per day, has been temporarily suspended to conduct some routine maintenance, he added.

The design capacity of two FPSOs for Guara and Iara has been expanded 20% to 100,000 barrels of oil per day and tendering for their construction is underway,he said.

BG Group is partnered in these fields with Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Galp Energia SGPS SA and Repsol YPF SA.  

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