Brazil utilizes close to 100% of its natural gas production

Brazil reported unprecedentedly low natural gas flaring levels last year, utilizing 95.4% of its production.

In 2009, utilization was at 83.8%. Successive annual declines in flaring led to record-breaking utilization levels in 2013, reported the National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP).

State-owned Petrobras made a formal commitment to ANP in December 2010 after it was found to have been flaring natural gas in excess of permitted regulatory levels.

This led to the creation of the Campos Basin Gas Flare Reduction Program, which set gas utilization targets up to 2014 and established an action plan to ensure the target would be met. Since then, the ANP has also tightened its permitted levels for the flaring of extraordinary volumes of gas.

Between January and November last year, the country’s natural gas production reached 25.64 billion cubic meters, out of which 1.16 billion was burned or lost in the production process, with another 3.46 billion reinjected into oil fields.

In the same period, 17.39 billion cubic meters of natural gas was made available to the domestic market. Out of this total, Petrobras used 3.61 billion cubic meters for its own consumption needs.

Translated by Mayra Borges