Portugal-based energy company Galp expects its oil production in Brazil to jump by 40% in the coming years as a new major field is set to begin production later in 2025, Nuno Bastos, EVP Upstream, has said.
Currently, Galp holds stakes in various oilfields in the deep waters of the Santos basin in the prolific pre-salt layer offshore Brazil. The Portuguese firm’s production in Brazil is about 110,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) at present.
The expected start-up of the Bacalhau field, operated by Norway’s Equinor, is set to significantly boost Galp’s oil and gas production in Brazil.
Petrogal Brasil, a joint venture of Galp (70%) and Sinopec (30%), holds a 20% stake in Bacalhau, which will have a production capacity of 220,000 barrels per day (bpd). Equinor and its partners in the field have estimated that there are more than 1 billion barrels of estimated recoverable reserves for Phase 1 of the development of Bacalhau.
“Once the FPSO reaches plateau over the next few years, Galp’s production in Brazil will increase by around 40%,” Bastos told Reuters on the sidelines of an energy event.
Galp’s investments in the first quarter of 2025 were $334 million (295 million euros), most of which went to reservoir evaluation offshore Namibia, development of the Bacalhau project, and transforming the Sines refinery in Portugal for hydrogen and biofuel production.
Bacalhau is just one of several new projects offshore Brazil that are starting up or about to start up, making Brazil one of the non-OPEC+ producers with the largest oil production growth alongside the U.S.
Earlier this week, TotalEnergies announced first oil from the fourth development phase of the Mero field on the Libra block in the pre-salt area of the Santos Basin. This startup brings Mero’s total production capacity to 770,000 bpd through five Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSOs) units.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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