business segments

P-53 production platform, in the Marlim Leste field

The year 2008 was marked by the company’s exploration of the pre-salt layer, laying the foundations for augmenting its oil production in the decades to come. The highlight was an important discovery, in an area of the Santos Basin that was given the name Iara, of a deposit of oil and natural gas with an estimated recoverable volume of between 3 and 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent. In the natural gas segment, emphasis was given to increasing production, which attained the level of 51.1 million m3/day, 17.8% higher than that of the previous year. Investment played an important role, to the benefit of the refineries, with the incorporation of new technology, and the biofuels segment, where the company’s activities were boosted by the setting up, in July, of the fully-owned subsidiary Petrobras Biocombustível.