South America

Argentina

Shales

We have more than 260,000 net mineral acres in the Vaca Muerta basin, a liquids and gas-rich play located in the Neuquén Province. We have interests in 29 productive wells. We drilled 10 wells in 2017 in our core operated acreage. We have 90% ownership in our operated Sierras Blancas / Cruz de Lorena central processing facility.

Brazil

We operate several producing fields in the Campos Basin, offshore Brazil. They consist of the Bijupirá and Salema fields (Shell interest 80%) and the BC-10 field (Shell interest 50%).

In the Santos Basin, we have a 30% interest in the BM-S-9 concession, that operates in the Sapinhoa and Lapa fields, as well as 25% interests in the BM-S-11 concession that operates in the Lula, Iracema, Berbigão, Sururu and Atapú West fields. The Lula, Sapinhoa, Berbigão, Sururu and Atapú West field accumulations are subject to unitisation agreements. Within these fields we have 10 producing FPSOs, of which the tenth (P66) reached first oil in 2017 and is expected to ramp-up to full production capacity in 2018. Four further FPSOs are expected to be brought online and ramped up over the period 2018-2020 (Lula North, Lula Extreme South, Berbigão and Atapú). A 15th FPSO has been sanctioned, potential options for its deployment are being matured and discussed with the operator.

We have further development and exploration leases in the Santos Basin within the Libra (Shell interest 20%) and Gato-do-Mato BM-S-54 (Shell interest 80%) fields and have a further 20% non-Shell-operated interest in the Sagitario BM-S-50 offshore exploration block, also in the Santos Basin. In 2017, together with our partners, we announced the start of production testing at the Libra field FPSO. A contract was signed to charter the first production FPSO, which is expected to have a capacity of 180 thousand boe/d and production is scheduled to start in 2021.

We operate 10 offshore exploration blocks in the Barreirinhas Basin (Shell interests ranging from 50% to 100%). Together with our partners, we won three 35-year production-sharing contracts for pre-salt blocks located in the Santos Basin. Two blocks are adjacent to the Gato do Mato field (Shell interest 80% as operator) and the non-Shell-operated Sapinhoá field (Shell interest 30%), where Shell is already present, and the third is Alto Cabo Frio West (Shell interest 55% as operator).

Rest of South America

We also have interests in Colombia and Uruguay.