en.Wedoany.com Reported - On August 13, Petrobras disclosed that the Tupi asset, located in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin, has reached cumulative production of 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, becoming the first oil and gas asset to achieve this production scale in the company's 73-year history. The 4 billion barrels represent the combined equivalent of oil and natural gas after conversion, not solely crude oil production.
Tupi is an early core asset in Brazil's pre-salt oil and gas development. The project produced its first oil in May 2009, and the first commercial pre-salt production system was commissioned in 2010. The development area is located offshore in southeastern Brazil, with a maximum total reservoir depth of approximately 7,000 meters, including about 2,000 meters of water depth, about 2,000 meters of salt layer, and about 3,000 meters of rock formation. The early construction drove the advancement of Brazil's technologies in ultra-deepwater drilling and completion, subsea production systems, long-distance oil and gas transportation, and floating production platform systems.
Following production enhancement and reservoir management adjustments, the Tupi/Iracema asset has regained a production level of 1 million barrels of crude oil per day this year, a level previously achieved in 2019. In 2025, Petrobras connected 11 new production wells to the asset, bringing the total number of drilled wells to over 150. Currently, nine offshore production units are responsible for oil and gas processing, storage, and offloading.
The Tupi asset has entered the mature field continuous development phase, with subsequent efforts focused on new well deployment, recovery factor enhancement, water injection system optimization, and life extension of existing offshore facilities. Petrobras is also evaluating the feasibility of installing a new production platform after 2031 and studying the extension of operating lives for some existing platforms. The new wells, new platform, and life extension plans are still subject to approval by project partners and Brazil's National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels.
Tupi is operated by Petrobras, with partners including Shell and Petrogal Brasil, while the Brazilian pre-salt oil management company PPSA participates in the Tupi shared reservoir on behalf of the federal government. The reservoir interest reallocation completed at the end of 2025 adjusted Petrobras' interest in the Tupi shared reservoir from 67.216% to 67.457%.
The production recovery at Tupi is also part of Petrobras' efforts to enhance output from mature pre-salt assets. The company plans to mitigate the natural decline of large oil fields by optimizing reservoir management, improving water injection efficiency, connecting new wells, and extending the life of existing facilities. In addition to Tupi, the Búzios and Mero fields in the Santos Basin are also major sources of pre-salt production growth in Brazil.
According to Petrobras' 2026–2030 business plan, the pre-salt layer could account for up to 82% of the company's total oil and gas production during the planning period. By 2030, the company's total oil and natural gas production is expected to remain in the range of 3.1 million to 3.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
