Petrobras said Aug. 24 the proportion of pre-salt gas processed at its Caraguatatuba Gas Processing Unit (UTGCA) had reached 73%.

The UTGCA receives non-marketable gas from offshore platforms and treats the gas to become natural gas, LPG and C5+, which is then further processed at a refinery.

Initially, UTGCA processed gas from post-salt wells, Petrobras said, and this was usually called poor gas because of its high concentration of methane. When pre-salt platforms began production, the UTGCA was adapted to allow a mixture of gases. That mix was initially 50% rich gas from the pre-salt and 50% poor gas from the post-salt.

Following operational improvements, the unit was able to raise the proportion of rich gas, allowing for further processing of rich gas and reaching the unit’s highest daily proportion of 73% of processed gas coming from the pre-salt, Petrobras said.

In July, UTGCA received 13.3 MMcm/d of unprocessed gas, offering the market 12.7 MMcm/d of natural gas.

“From November 2020 to July 2023, the initiatives implemented at the Caraguatatuba Unit allowed for a gain of approximately 2.4 Bcm of natural gas and 617,000 cubic meters of LPG,” Willian França, director of industrial processes and products at Petrobras, said in a press release.

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