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Petrobras uses AIMMS for Offshore Gas Planning

Offshore Gas Planning

About Petrobras

Founded in 1953, Petrobras is the largest corporation in Brazil It specializes in oil and gas exploration and production, refining, commercialization and transportation. The company also distributes petrochemicals, biofuels, natural gas and energy. It has upwards of 135 production platforms, 15 refineries, 31,000 kilometers of pipelines and more than 8,000 service stations.

Problem

Petrobras has several oil & gas fields in the Campos basin, located on Brazil’s southeast coast. The basin produces 20.8 million cubic meters of gas per day and its monthly revenue on onshore delivered gas surpasses $100 million. Fields in the basin are explored by more than 30 oil platforms. A gas network connects these platforms with the shore, where gas is subsequently sold and used to generate energy or re-injected to enhance oil production. Planning the efficient use of this network is crucial to keep the platforms operating. It’s also key to supply the company’s customers in a timely way. The Operations Research and Information Technology team at Petrobras needed a fast, reliable and intuitive decision support application to support its offshore gas planning. They had already migrated from spreadsheets to an optimization environment, but were looking for a solution with higher performance, scalability and improved integration with other systems.

Solution

The company chose to develop a decision support app for multi-annual offshore gas planning in AIMMS. The application, called MOVIGAS, helps managers maximize oil & gas exploitation at the Campos basin. It is connected to several company databases, providing the user up to date information in an intuitive graphical interface. Using AIMMS as its core optimizer, planners can now navigate through the gas network, generate an optimal plan and identify bottlenecks. The software is also used by planners in similar gas networks operated by the company.

Results

Thanks to the app’s user-friendliness, systems integration and visualization tools, Petrobras’ planners were able to achieve desired performance requirements.

Results in a nutshell:

  • Improved planning agility

  • Improved ability to meet demand

  • Higher output and increased revenues

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