Petrobras to drill three new Foz do Amazonas wells in January

Petrobras expects to begin drilling three new offshore exploration wells in the Foz do Amazonas basin in January. Renata Baruzzi, engineering director at the company, shared the operational schedule with journalists after attending the ROG.e energy conference organised by the Brazilian Petroleum Institute (IBP).

The first exploratory well in the area, named Morpho, should wrap up drilling work in October. Baruzzi stated that the current drilling rig will then leave the region. Petrobras will replace it with another rig that must first complete a cleaning process to remove invasive sun coral before deploying.

Brazil's environmental agency Ibama granted the state-run oil company authorisation in September to drill the three additional wells. The company named these sites Manga, Crotalus, and Morpho Extensão (or PAD Morpho). The new wells are contingent, meaning they are drilled under specific conditions depending on results from the primary well to evaluate commercial viability and delineate oil discoveries.

In August, Petrobras announced that it had discovered oil off the coast of Amapá at a water depth of roughly 2,900 metres.