The Norwegian supplier-contractor build-up in Brazil continues apace and the South American country is fast-becoming a place of “fantastic possibilities”, the visiting Norwegian prime minister told reporters in Rio at the weekend.

“Brazil can become the most important “oil” country for Norway,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was quoted by newspaper Dagens Næringsliv as saying.

Stoltenberg was in Brazil as a “Brazilian-Norwegian” partnership got underway with a “leadership seminar on pre-salt development”.

Norwegian oilfield suppliers believe they have the upper hand in the race to solve the riddle of producing from Brazil’s extreme deepwater high-pressure, high-temperature reservoirs.

The newly outlined Iara field is said to contain 80 billion barrels in recoverable oil and gas. Its relationship to the nearby Tupi field and other offshore geology has some observers believing upwards of 100 B bbls lie in beneath the tricky salt domes in the Brazilian deep.

The country’s excellent light oil, akin to North Sea oil, is “suspended” in rock strata on average some 6,500 metres deep.

Some 120 delegates are expected at the pre-salt seminar to hear about a dozen speakers. The event is being chaired by the Norwegian offshore industry’s export-assistance agency INTSOK.

Monday’s presentations are expected to be on “supply chains in pre-salt areas”; “FPSOs for pre-salt”; subsea and long-standing R&D co-op on deepwater between Norway’s research community SINTEF and Brazil oil champ Petrobras.

A Brazialian presentation on qualifying technology for the pre-salt areas offshore was expected.

Tags: Petrobras