Petrobras has claimed a new presalt production record of nearly half a million barrels of oil per day from its ultradeep assets – a record that is likely to continue being broken almost every month for the next few years at least, as it started out from zero just a few short years ago.

Announcing a new production record of 428,000 bbl/d of oil, Petrobras said the figure was achieved on 15 April from presalt fields in the Santos and Campos Basins.

Increased output from the P-58 production vessel, which started flowing on 17 March in the Parque de Baleias region, was part of the reason for the new production record. “[The] P-58 has already been producing roughly 50,000 bbl/d through three wells, all of which are from the presalt layer,” the Brazilian major declared.

The new production total has been achieved with a tally of 24 wells – 15 in the Campos Basin and nine in the Santos Basin. The Campos wells account for 222,000 bbl/d of the production total, while the nine in the Santos accounted for the remaining 206,000 bbl/d.

And more is to come, of course, with Petrobras saying that 15 new wells are due to come onstream by the end of this year – 11 in Santos, and four in Campos.

Two of these will be hooked up to the Cidade de São Paulo FPSO; five to the Cidade de Paraty, one to the P-48 platform and three to P-58.

“In addition, two new wells will be connected to FPSO Cidade de Ilhabela and another two to FPSO Cidade de Mangaratiba platforms, which will be installed and start up in the second half of the year,” Petrobras declared.