O Pré-sal brasileiro e suas vertentes: da evolução geológica ao mercado internacional do petróleo

Abstract

The feasibility of the production of the Brazilian pre-salt reservoirs represents the summit of the accumulation of the geological, geophysical and productive knowledge of the basins on the Brazilian eastern margin along the almost sixty years of the exploitation activities and hydrocarbons production. Such a successful trajectory was only possible thanks to the investment of the Brazilian state and to the technical competence of Petrobras in the search for the national oil self-sufficiency. The positive characteristics of the Brazilian pre-salt, namely, the potential volume of the reserves, high productivity, oil and natural gas quality, and the low exploratory and production risks, especially in the Santos Basin, generated two distinct movements made by the Brazilian state: the first one , in 2010, with the adoption of a regulatory model for the exploitation and production in the reservoirs of hydrocarbons under the evaporitic sequence that aimed at the best profit of the economic surplus by means of the greatest income raising produced by the national state, and by the strengthening of Petrobras. The second one, in 2016, with the approval of the end of Petrobras ’obligation to explore and produce in all the Brazilian pre-salt fields, one of the pillars of the regulatory model approved in 2010. The reduction of the state interventionism in the development of the Brazilian pre-salt arose of a set of factors inserted in the Oil Geopolitics and in the International Oil Market, among which we may highlight: (i) the aggravation of the criticism and pressures coming not only from national entities and organizations, but also from international oil corporations and their original countries that intended to alter the Brazilian legislation in order to allow a bigger participation of the international corporations in the activities of exploitation and production in the reservoirs under the evaporitic sequence; (ii) the competence of Petrobras in the development of the oil and natural gas production in the reservoirs under the evaporitic sequence; (iii) the political instability experienced in Brazil after 2013; (iv) the change of the Republic’s presidency in 2016; (v) the fact that the international oil market underwent considerable alterations since 2014, mostly with the dramatic reduction of the price of the oil barrel in the international market, which carried out the change in exploitation and production of hydrocarbon investments of the major oil corporations in the world, leading the investments to more profitable oil provinces such as the Brazilian pre-salt.