Rio Oil & Gas ended with the participation of authorities
Event brought together more than 40 thousand visitors and big names to discuss industry-specific issues
Rio de Janeiro, September 27, 2018 – President Michel Temer said during the closing ceremony of Rio Oil & Gas that “the opening and competition attracted investment and technology to the Brazilian oil & gas industry .”Brazilian reforms reassured investors, and I can this optimism with this new Brazil in here. We will not allow the country and the industry to go back to the 20th century”, Temer said, referring to the outcome of the elections. Rio Oil & Gas 2018 brought together more than 40 thousand visitors during the four days of the event.
Also present at the closing ceremony, the president of the Brazilian Institute of Oil, Gas and Biofuels (IBP), José Firmo, said that the investments made in Brazil will result in 400,000 new jobs and more than R$ 160 billion in annual revenues. “We will keep engaged to show the relevance and positive impact of our industry. We must take advantage of the window of opportunity to convert reserves into wealth at this moment of transformation”, he said.
Petrobras’ CEO Ivan Monteiro commented that the resumption of optimism is reflected in enthusiastic speeches by major oil companies, which points to the “government’s effort to design standards that make the sector more attractive”. Ivan also said that Petrobras “has grown and feels comfortable with more competition”.
Décio Odonne, Director General of the National Agency of Petroleum (ANP), also stressed the importance of “not going backwards, avoiding monopolies and artificial prices”, avoiding an ideological approach to the sector.
The Minister of Mines & Energy Moreira Franco highlighted the importance of the changes made to the local content, fiscal environment (renewal of Repetro) and opening to new players in the subsalt. “We saw the fragility of such an important sector to the country, and we had to rethink a reformist agenda, which now allows this new moment of recovery”, he said.
Subsalt
The subsalt was also highlighted in the panel “The resumption of exploration in a scenario of technological evolution”. Petrobras’ Executive Director of Exploration & Production Solange Guedes pointed out that the subsalt is not only among the largest oil and gas reserves discovered in the world in recent years, it is also an area that demands innovation and technological development.
Arnaud Breuillac, Total’s president of Exploration & Production, exemplified that these advances may bring benefits to the subsalt such as what is happening with the use of drones to carry out seismic surveys in forests without the need to deforest or cause other impacts to the environment.
ExxonMobil’s global exploration president, Stephen Greenlee, emphasized the importance of the subsalt and said that the reserves discovered in Brazil in recent years are the largest in the world and exceed the aggregate of reserves of the next five countries in the ranking, which made the US company to return to the auctions and invest in new areas in Brazil. “We determined that we needed to be in Brazil and so far we have mapped about 30 targets for drilling in new assets in here”, he said.
Mature onshore fields
Opportunities for exploration and revitalization of mature fields were discussed at the Onshore Forum. Representatives of the National Agency of Petroleum (ANP) and the Energy Research Company (EPE), as well as consultants and executives of oil companies analyzed the current scenario and made predictions for the coming years.
Marcos Frederico de Souza, superintendent of Petroleum Studies at EPE, outlined the positive aspects for investments in this field: “decentralized fields and the possibility of participation of smaller companies are aspects that facilitate a revitalization project and the permanent exploration of these fields”, he said.
Newton Monteiro, a consultant at NRM Consultoria, said that it is urgent to reverse the sharp decline in reserves of mature basins. From 2000 to 2018, there was a 49% drop in production. “We cannot refrain from producing oil and natural gas that have already been discovered and assessed over decades, particularly knowing that they are in regions where this activity is almost always the only one to generate income”, he concluded.
Impacts of RenovaBio
RenovaBio, a national policy aimed at encouraging the production of biofuels, was the subject of a discussion at the Downstream Forum, which evaluated its path and perspectives for the coming years.
Paulo Costa, infrastructure analyst at the Ministry of Mines & Energy (MME), presented the main instruments of RenovaBio: “to ensure compliance with the national emission reduction targets for the fuel matrix; require certification of biofuel production and create the carbon credit (CBIO) as financial assets traded on the stock exchange market”, he summarized.
RenovaBio also raised a question whether global trends are applicable to Brazil. For José Mauro, EPE’s Director of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuel Studies, electric vehicles, for example, are great alternatives to the reality of European countries, but they do not apply to Brazil. “Our abundant energy matrix added to our distribution hub makes biofuel the ideal way to make the transition towards clean energy”, he said. “We have a regulatory challenge in order to enforce our policies, but RenovaBio is already a successful program”, he concluded.
Anti-corruption pact
The last day of Rio Oil & Gas 2018 was also marked by the signing of the Integrity Pact of the Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels Industry. The ceremony was attended by CEOs of 14 signatories – Petrobras, Shell, BP, Total, TechnipFMC, Chevron, Halliburton, Repsol Sinopec, Schlumberger, Equinor, Aker, BHGE, Ocyan and Siemens, in addition to the Ministry of Transparency and Comptroller General Wagner Rosário.
The president of the Brazilian Institute of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (IBP), José Firmo, commented on the unprecedented Pact of Integrity. “Over the last four years in Brazil and 40 years in the world, compliance has become a watchword. In this sense, the oil and gas industry is experiencing a historic moment, which should inspire initiatives such as this one”, said José Firmo, president of the Brazilian Institute of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels.
According to Minister Rosario, the pact meets the needs of anti-corruption programs developed by the federal government. “The oil and gas industry is taking a first step, which is very significant. This helps change the country and makes Brazil take the path we all want”, he said.
Finally, Rafael Mendes, executive director of Governance and Compliance at Petrobras, underscored the importance of the Integrity Pact as a mechanism to bring the sector closer. “This pact unites the entire supply chain and the O&G industry around integrity”, he said.
Good Practices Guidebook – UPGN
At Rio Oil & Gas, IBP has also launched the “Good Practices Guidebook – Guidelines to Access the Natural Gas Processing Unit – UPGN”. This literature, which is already available on IBP’s website, was prepared by the Technical Committees of the Institute’s Natural Gas Executive Office based on best international practice. It is based on the Code of Practice on Access to Upstream Oil and Gas Infrastructure on the UK Continental Shelf.
Exhibition
Rio Oil & Gas Business Fair, which featured 400 exhibitors, received updates focused especially on new technologies.
Omni Táxi Aéreo brought the AW189 helicopter, a one-of-a-kind in Brazil, which has a seating capacity of 16 passengers and can also carry cargo. The company was also focused on presenting the other products in aerial solutions, such as drones. “We can offer images of hard-to-reach places that would normally require a strong security structure and could even stop production”, explains Ricardo Araújo, business development director.
Equinor offered visitors the chance to “walk” through a drilling rig or carry out an underwater inspection on a platform. Two booths with virtual reality glasses took the audience right into their operations. In addition, a third screen featured augmented reality glasses, which “mapped” the facilities and informed the source and supplier of each part.
Firjan has brought training solutions. Their booth presented the Mobile Welding School, a bus with 14 welding booths where practical classes are taught to employees of a factory. The goal is to optimize the time and costs for a company that needs to train its staff.