According to Bento Albuquerque, the Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister, Brazil is set to become the world’s fifth-largest exporter of oil by the end of the decade.
Brazil currently produces 3.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of crudes and liquids, but this is expected to rise considerably. Albuquerque said about this:
“In 2030, when we reach a production of 5.3 million barrels of oil per day, Brazil will become the fifth largest exporter in the world.”
While oil production is dominated by the state-owned Petrobras, international oil companies have also started taking an interest in the country. For example, Equinor and ExxonMobil, the owner of the Mobil lubricant brand, recently announced an $8 billion investment into the country’s Bacalhau deep-water field. The companies claim the field contains light oil with lower than usual levels of contaminants, and they will be able to pump at it much lower levels of carbon emissions compared to the global average, at a breakeven cost of just $35/barrel.
The pre-salt offshore oilfields of Brazil have mostly driven the increases in oil production, with it being responsible for two million bpd of the country’s oil production. This has allowed its oil exports to reach 1.4 million bpd in 2020, which was a record for the country.
What’s more, Brazil does not currently belong to the OPEC+ alliance of countries that are currently bound by agreed production quotas, so it is free to expand its production while it is economically feasible to do so.
