Top 6 Oil Producers in Central & South America, 2006-Feb. 2011 -- EIA

by Aaron and David Rachovich

Production of Crude Oil including Lease Condensate (Thousand Barrels Per Day), 2006-Feb.2011

Rank	Country	Feb 2011	Jan 2011	Full Year 2010	Full Year 2009	Full Year 2008	Full Year 2007	Full Year 2006
1.	Venezuela	2,240	2,240	2,146	2,239	2,394	2,433	2,511
2.	Brazil	2,062	2,122	2,055	1,950	1,812	1,748	1,723
3.	Colombia	862	840	786	671	588	531	531
4.	Argentina	631	627	642	654	661	679	696
5.	Ecuador	509	500	486	486	505	511	536
6.	Trinidad & Tobago	100	96	98	107	114	121	143
Top 6 countries		6,404	6,425	6,213	6,107	6,074	6,023	6,140
Central & South America total		6,598	6,622	6,414	6,300	6,281	6,236	6,355
All Countries (World*)		74,604	75,393	74,049	72,282	73,670	72,985	73,428

*Updated figures for June 1, 2011, i.e., at the time of writing this post.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Energy Statistics, here and here.

(Figures above may be updated again at any time by EIA. Update: please see my post "Argentina's Senate Approves Bill to Expropriate YPF," Apr 27, 2012, including remarks and explanations for Argentina's decline in oil production since its peak in 1998. Also, please see our post "World's Top 22 Oil Producers, Full Year 2010 (including OPEC and plus 2009 production)," here coupled with our posts "Top 8 Oil Producers in Asia & Oceania, 2006-2010," and "Africa's Top 8 Oil Producers, 2006-2010." And our post "Top 25 World Oil Consumers, 2009-2010," here. -- D.R.)

Petrobras Announces Third LNG Terminal

by OGJ editors, OGJ, Mar 2, 2011
Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) reported it will install a third offshore LNG terminal.

The Bahia regasification terminal (TRBA), with capacity to regasify 14 million cu m/day (cmd), will supply natural gas to the state of Bahia, the heaviest consumer of gas among the northeastern Brazilian states.

TRBA will be installed in the Bay of All Saints and interconnect with a pipeline network at two sites: one in the Bahia network, at Candeias, and the other at kilometer 910 on the Cacimbas-Catu pipeline, a section of the Southeast-Northeast Gas Pipeline started up in March 2010.

As part of Brazil’s Growth Acceleration Program, Petrobras said, work will begin in March 2012 with completion scheduled for August 2013 under an investment of nearly $425 million.

Currently, Brazil has LNG terminals at Pecem (State of Ceara) with a regasification capacity of 7 million cmd, and in the Guanabara Bay (State of Rio de Janeiro) with capacity of 14 million cmd. When the TRBA terminal comes online in September 2013, Brazil’s total regasification capacity will reach 35 million cmd, overtaking the gas imports via pipeline from Bolivia (31 million cmd).

At the Pecem and Guanabara Bay terminals, tankers moor at a two-berth pier and LNG is transferred over cryogenic arms from supply vessel to regasification vessel. At the TRBA terminal, LNG will be transferred directly between vessels using side-by-side docking, which means that the regasification vessel will dock at a single-berth, island-type pier, said the company.

With direct connection to the supply vessel, LNG will be transferred over short hoses or loading arms to the regasification vessel, which will convert LNG back into a vapor [i.e., gaseous state].

Gas will then be injected into the pipeline network through a 28-in. pipeline that is 49 km long including a 15-km subsea section.

Petrobras noted that currently only two [sic] other LNG terminals in the world use this configuration [i.e., side-by-side -- D.R.]: Bahia Blanca in Argentina and the UAE’s Dubai terminal. [Full story]

(Brazil imported 298 Bcf of natural gas in 2009, a 24 percent drop from 2008. The decline in Brazilian overall natural gas demand, coupled with policy choices aimed at reducing imports, led to this decline. The country currently receives imports by pipeline from Bolivia and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from Trinidad and Tobago and Nigeria. Import growth in the future is expected to be met more with LNG than with conventional pipeline imports. Brazil imports natural gas from Bolivia via the Gasbol pipeline, which links Santa Cruz, Bolivia to Porto Alegre, Brazil, via Sao Paulo. The 2,000-mile Gasbol has a maximum capacity of 1.1 Bcf per day (Bcf/d). In early 2009, Brazil announced that it would reduce imports from Bolivia from 1.1 Bcf/d to 0.7 Bcf/d. According to ANP, Brazilian imports of Bolivian gas have since declined by 27 percent. However, Bolivia still accounted for 96 percent of Brazil’s total natural gas imports. The Pecem---please see image below---received its first LNG cargo from Trinidad and Tobago in July 2008, while the Guanabara Bay terminal came online in May 2009. According to ANP, Brazil received 15 Bcf of natural gas in the form of LNG in 2009, mostly from Trinidad and Tobago---please see U.S. EIA, Brazil Country Analysis Brief, Jan 2011, here. For the Petrobras's standing in the company rankings---PIW's and others---please see my blog stand-alone page "Companies" > Petrobras, here. -- D.R.)

Source: LNGpedia.com here Description: The Floating Storage and Regasification Unit---FSRU---vessel, the Golar Spirit, is reportedly the world's first methane vessel to have been converted to perform LNG regasification on board. The regasification capacity of the Golar Spirit is seven million cubic meters (cbm) per day, and its storage capacity is 129,000 cbm of LNG, equivalent to 77 million cbm of natural gas.