Petrobras (PBR)

Deepwater Expertise

We are a leader in deepwater drilling, with recognized expertise in deepwater exploration, development and production. We have developed our expertise over many years and have achieved significant milestones, including the following:

Because many of Brazil’s richest oil fields are located offshore in deep waters, we intend to continue to focus on our deepwater production technology to increase our proved reserves and future domestic production. See Item 5. “Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Research and Development.” Our main exploration and development efforts involve offshore fields neighboring our existing fields and production infrastructure, where higher drilling costs have been offset by higher drilling success ratios and relatively higher production. On a per-well basis, the exploration, development and production costs of an offshore well are generally higher than those costs for an onshore well. We believe, however, that offshore production is cost-effective, because historically:

We currently extract hydrocarbons from offshore wells in waters with depths of up to 6,188 feet (1,886 meters), and we have been developing technology to permit production from wells at water depths of up to 9,843 feet (3,000 meters). Set forth below is the distribution, by water depth, of offshore oil production in 2004 and 2003.

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