Search Brazilian Properties Live Help Join Our Mailing List

Shell's investment in Brazil 'aids employment and economy'

Date added: 10th December, 2009 at 09:02
(view all articles from December, 2009)

Shell's investment in Brazil's offshore oilfields has benefited employment and helped attract additional outlay from businesses, according to a source at the company.

Marvin Odum, the Anglo-Dutch energy giant's director for upstream assets in the Americas, also remarked that Shell is committed to its work in the Latin American country.

Since it started production in the Parque das Conchas field - which lies 110km off the country's South East coast - back in July 2009, it has managed output of more than one million barrels of oil.

As well as being a significant milestone for the region's oil industry, Mr Ovum said that it "also reinforces Shell's presence in the country with a project that has created jobs and encouraged investments".

During its time developing the field, the company has brought in and trained a number of young Brazilian workers to ensure the sustainability of the project in the future.

For every senior engineer that Shell employs in the region, a junior apprentice is brought in who will work on the Parque das Conchas field - formerly known as BC-10 - for the longer term, its senior petrophysical engineer Lee Stockwell explained.

One of these less experienced employees is Katharine Sandler, who began her career as an intern and graduated on the day the company announced its investment in Brazil.

"There is a real need to develop expertise in the oil industry in Brazil," she said, adding: "BC-10 is my professional school, like a brother to me. We have grown up together, through every step."

It has not been easy producing such large volumes of the hydrocarbon at Parque das Conchas, the company noted, due to its location beneath ultra-deep water which is subject to particularly rough seas.

With the oil almost 2km below the surface, a number of technical innovations were needed to extract it.

Remote-controlled submarines were needed to install the necessary production equipment following Shell's successful exploratory work at the site, which it carried out in 2000.

Furthermore, technology was created allowing oil and gas resources to be separated on the sea bed, before being transported upwards by electric pumps connected to a floating storage facility on the surface.

Thanks to these advances, the company anticipates being able to produce an additional one million barrels of oil and gas per day in coming years.

Its investment in Brazil has also paved the way for future work, Steven Grant, the company's subsea team lead for the Parque das Conchas project noted.

He said: "Developing breakthrough technologies and being successful in Parque das Conchas will allow the development of other deep-water projects in Brazil and elsewhere." ADNFCR-1477-ID-19505089-ADNFCR